The Curse of Immortality
by TeninChwang
Summary: I never understood the fascination with Immortality. I stumbled across it without even trying, and have since discovered countless ways to achieve it. The trick isn't living forever, no, the trick is becoming mortal once you realise how much of a Curse it really is. Natsu/Lisanna, Harry/Erza Powerful!Natsu, HPcanonmagic!Harry
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer****: I don't claim to own Harry Potter or Fairy Tail. This is a work of fiction based off both these worlds with characters created by their respective owners. I own none of it...**

Prologue

Edolas, a land of danger and mystery, ruled by an enigmatic king and policed by the ever faithful Royal Army.

For as long as the denizens of this wondrous world could remember, the land had been run and powered by a mystical force known as Magic. While many knew nothing of its origins – or how to even wield such a power – some spent their lives researching its mysteries. While Alchemists and Philosophers alike will debate its origin, true purpose and place in their world until the day their species became extinct, there was one truth that they all agreed upon and accepted.

Magic was Edolas' most precious natural resource, and it was _limited_. The '_Lifeblood of the Planet'_, some called it, and to this date, no one has been able to come up with an argument to disprove this fact.

A fact the Royalty of Edolas - more specifically King Faust - knew all too well. Their primary objective however, other than discovering a new, renewable source of Magic for their world or a way to replenish their own dwindling supply, was to keep the public ignorant.

While running out of magic would be an unmitigated disaster for his kingdom, widespread panic would be even worse, for you see Magic had become so ingrained into the day-to-day life of the Edolan peoples that a life, suddenly, without it would be unfathomable.

Magic was used to provide light for them to see, fire to cook their food, warmth to warm them against the winter and energy to power their great machines. Heck, it was magic that kept the entire Royal City afloat in the sky and protected from the savage beasts that roamed the lands.

Obviously, one can see how running out of supply was simply out of the question.

To make matters worse, humans were not the only race on Edolas that used, or relied upon magic – in fact, they were not even the dominant species.

For over a century now Faust and those before him have had to put up with the Tyrannical Exceed that ruled them from the shadows. Regulating their use of magic and pulling the strings of the puppet his Kingdom had become.

His hands were tied.

Unlike Humans, the mythical Exceed housed magic within their bodies and could use it as carelessly as they'd like, only to have their supply restored after a good night's rest. Their method of draining the magic of Edolas and storing it in the crystalline substance known as Lacrima must seem barbaric to such godly creatures.

It was also the reason why Humans feared and respected the Exceed.

_Not for much longer_, Faust thought darkly as his faithful servant, and Chief of Staff of the Royal Army Byro finished securing the drugged and subdued abomination to the magic draining device. King Faust towered over most men, especially his diminutive Chief of Staff with a tall, slim build covered in long flowing robes in different shades of brown. He has a long face covered mostly by his long and wavy grey hair, moustache and beard.

With her arms, feet and torso secured to the large boulder with shackles and steel-segmented belts, Byro stepped back to admire his work before smirking in satisfaction. Byro was a short, elderly man with a bald, warty head and thick eyebrows. His short frame was covered mostly by a thick, black robe that, along with his creepy smirk and decrepit features, added to enhance his maniacal image to the point that even the King was sometimes ill at ease around him.

Byro took two steps back and pressed a button on a remote he procured from somewhere within his robes. The shackles binding the girl hanging loosely before them tightened, pulling her arms out to her sides, her feet close together and her back firmly against the large boulder. Only her head seemed to be allowed to hang free, but that was quickly fixed with the push of a second button on Byro's device.

After a brief pause which had the King wondering if Byro's device had somehow malfunctioned, a mechanical arm appeared from behind the engraved boulder and affixed a muzzle to the girl's face. Not long after, a second appeared when the first disappeared carrying a long, metallic hose with it that attached the appendage to the space left in the muzzle where the girl's mouth was located.

With everything in place and restraints secured, the girl looked ready to be crucified, but Faust was thinking of doing no such thing.

That would be such a terrible, terrible waste, after all.

The girl looked to be finally coming to as both Faust and Byro watched curiously to see her reaction. It took several moments for the lingering effects of the narcotics pumped into her system yesterday to finally wear off, and a few more for her to realise she had been restrained. She tried, desperately to move a muscle, access her magic, _anything¸_ but found it all pointless.

Again, she tried pulling on more of her magic only for the runic symbols on her bindings to flash with a blue light and drain her of the very little energy she felt coursing through her system.

Noticing the futility of her situation, tears of frustration and desperation came to her eyes as she finally realised the other two occupants of the dark dungeon-like room.

Seeing recognition in those beautiful, blue eyes, Faust smirked triumphantly.

"You were careless, _Earthland_ girl," he said with contempt, spitting the name of her homeland out like a curse.

Said girl's eyes widened further, causing Faust's smirk to vanish and his visage to become stony.

"Did you take us for fools? Bumbling _buffoons_?" He spat hatefully. "Did you think that because we lack magic of our own that you were superior to us? Did you think you could hide from us forever? We knew the _second_ you landed in our world and were on you instantly."

Faust relished in the growing dread in her expression and allowed Byro to take over.

"You may have evaded us for over a year, but you and your _Fairy Tail_ compatriots let that get to your heads," he added triumphantly. "For you see, your magic was like a beacon to us, so much power, so much potential… it was _easy_ to create a device to home in on it, no matter _how_ good your friends thought they were at hiding you from us."

Faust let her stew on those words for a few moments, watching as the tears began to flow more freely. "The moment your friends decided to hide you from us, they were branded as traitors. A shame, really," she said with a careless shrug, "it is a mistake Knightwalker will make sure none of them will _ever_ make again."

Even through her muzzle, Faust was able to hear her gasp of shock.

"After so many years of trying, we were finally able to use the Anima to obtain a powerful mage from Earthland. With your naturally replenishing magical energy, we can provide magic to our kingdom for years! Imagine what we can do with a hundred! Nay, a thousand!" His eyes began to widen and his pupils dilated, giving him an almost desperate, fanatical expression. "Never will we have to worry about being subjugated again and you, my dear, will be the first step in helping us escape these shackles! You should be proud!"

Again, she began to thrash around in her restraints as Faust motioned to Byro one last time. The girl's thrashing grew more desperate as the small man pressed the third and final button on his remote, activating the machine that could promise a prosperous future for Edolas and her peoples.

The engraving on the boulder the girl was attached to shone brightly as a sedative flew directly into the girl's mouth and nostrils through the tube attached to the muzzle. As her eyes began to droop due to a mixture of both the sedative and the draining of her magic, she could only utter one, discernable word that meant nothing to the two men watching on triumphantly.

'_Na…..tsu…'_

**A/N: Unbeta'd**

**Finally decided I'd get this down after thinking about a crossover like this for a long time and absolutely falling in love with Fairy Tail over the last year. The protagonist role in this story will be shared by Natsu, Harry and Erza while Harry will in no way have any 'Earthland' Magic. He will also not make an appearance until chapter three or four.**

**The pairings will be Natsu/Lisanna and Harry/Erza while I'll be taking a unique - at least I think - portrayal of Lucy. I don't write Harems, nor do I like them, so you won't see them. Please don't ask for them if you want to leave a review.**

**Natsu will also be incredibly OOC in this story. I ran with the idea of 'What if he actually took his word seriously'? That whole arc where he promised he'd find her if she was ever lost again was incredibly strange to me, especially when Lisanna was supposedly proclaimed dead without a body...**

**Was it common practise for people to fade away when they die in Earthland? o.O**

**He will be a lot darker, and much more powerful. His only goal in life now is to find Lisanna if it's the last thing he does, and you better get out of his way if you even _suggest_ he give up or that she is, in fact, dead.**

**I'm posting this story with three chapter (2 and a prologue) with one or two more possibly coming this week. I'm home and bored for a little while due to injuries so I started writing again, don't try to hold me to any updated schedules, because I probably won't keep to them :p**


	2. Chapter 001

Chapter 1:

The Kingdom of Fiore, a neutral country in the world of Earthland had a mere population of seventeen million people – barely a tenth of its neighbouring countries – though, as many aggressors in the past can attest to, being small definitely did not make them weak.

Earthland is a world of Magic, a mysterious source of power that is bought and sold every day. It has become an integral and necessary part of people's lives. While feats of magic have become commonplace in the world today, only a small percentage of the Earthland's population are born with it inside of them. Those few that can control and manipulate the mystical energy are known as Mages.

These Mages generally utilize their magic as their main source of income by joining guilds and performing jobs for them on commission.

While Earthland has suffered countless brutal wars, Fiore has been able to remain neutral through them all due to the large number of powerful guilds housed within its borders. These guilds, while mostly friendly with one another, are constantly competing for top spot in both power and popularity – both of which determine the amount of job requests they see and thus, their jewel flow.

It is in one of Fiore's port towns that we find a young woman travelling on her own in the hopes of joining the guild of her dreams.

Lucy Heartfilia looked around her in awe at the beauty of Hargeon Town. Being one of Fiore's oldest settlements, it still kept a lot of its original charm despite civilisation's inevitable progress into the future. She was currently looking for a Magic Shop but held little hope in doing so. Hargeon Town made a name for itself as a true port town, earning most of its income from fishing and the local merchant sailors rather than the arcane.

In a working class town like this, a girl like Lucy drew a lot of attention – attention she generally relished in as she winked at the few cute boys she caught staring and giggled at the merchants making fools of themselves by tripping over crates or walking into poles as she sauntered on by.

Lucy was a beautiful young woman, after all, with soft brown eyes and medium length blonde hair that she currently had unbound save for a singular bunch on the right side of her head tied with a blue ribbon. Naturally, it was mostly her large, full breasts her low cut white tank top was struggling against and the navy blue mini skirt she wore that garnered most of her admirer's attention. She was blessed with a curvaceous body and killer looks that, unsurprisingly, led a lot of people to missing the brown belt that hung loosely below her waist and kept up thanks to her wide hips. This belt held significance in the face of her beauty only because it sported a curled up black whip on her left hip and a metal ring looped through several gold and silver stylized keys.

While these keys may not be widely recognized, any mage worth his or her salt should be able to spot them for what they are on first sight, and therefore, what that made her – a Mage.

A guildless mage, to be sure, but a mage, nonetheless.

Groaning in frustration she plopped down on the stool beside her and removed her knee-high black boots, massaging her weary feet as she enjoyed the scenery of the beautiful park she has accidently happened upon.

The sounds of the fountains surrounding her, birds chirping and children laughing as they played should have been enough to put at ease even the most worn of travellers…

Not Lucy, though.

"Ugh, I can't believe there's not even _one_ Magic Shop in the entire town!" she whined, bemoaning the hours practically wasted walking around the large town scouring for one. Sure, the town was pretty and all, but how can any town, especially in _this_ day and age _not_ have a Magic Shop?

Huffing in exasperation, she reached one arm in the air and grasped its elbow with her other. As she arched her back to get all the kinks out, she spied a group of cute boys trying, and failing, to be discrete in checking her out.

The three young men in question, currently on their way back from a hard day's work down at the docks, continued to sneak glances at her while pretending to have a conversation by the large fountain in the centre of the park's clearing.

They nearly blew their covers when Lucy arched her back out, making her already impressive breasts stand out even more, the material of her tank top straining so much that they could even make our the shape of her sheer bra.

"Holy…" one began, only to be interrupted by his friend.

"They don't make them like that here," the second teen agreed with a happy sigh, wishing nothing more that he had a pair of x-ray vision glasses handy.

"Stop staring idiots," the third admonished as he snuck a peak at her out of the corner of his eye. "Or at least don't make it as bloody obvious."

"Hey look, she's coming this way," the first one said with a dopey smile. It took a while for pervs number two and three to register what he had said, having not noticed as they'd turned away when they saw her moving.

"What?" the question came out as more of a squeal than anything, but none of number two's friends called him on it, as Lucy walked right up to them, her arms clasped behind her back and a cute smile adorning her face.

"Hi boys," she greeted in a friendly tone. "Do you think you can give me a hand?"

Not trusting their own voices, all three nodded as their gazes pinged between her eyes and her accentuated bust continuously.

"You see, I'm a mage," she began, placing a finger on her bottom lip and tilting her head to the left in confusion, "and I've been looking for a Magic Shop all afternoon, do you think you can draw me a map to the closest one for me?" she asked as she battered her eyelashes. "Please?"

"I'll do it," the first teen offered immediately, pulling out a notepad and marker pen from somewhere on his person as he began to draw.

"You're rubbish at drawing, let me do it!" The second declared before snatching the pad from his friend and beginning to draw a map of his own.

"And you're too stupid to do it with any accuracy," the first teen fired heatedly as he snatched his notebook back. "Besides, this is _my_ notebook."

"Who you calling stupid, asshole?"

"Who you calling asshole, dumbass?"

"I know you are, but what am I?"

"Really?" The first teen arched a brow, not even noticing when the third guy took the notebook right out of his hands. "What are you? Seven?"

"Your Mum's seven!"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"You don't make sense!"

Lucy continued to watch the two argue over which of them would help her, secretly pleased that she could elicit such a reaction between friends with only a smile and a wink.

And her awesome boobs.

Modesty was never really her strong point…

Before either of the arguing teens realized what was going on, the third boy had already completed his map. The town was mostly built in a grid like fashion around the large, circular park in its centre. He had simply drawn a circle overlapping a large grid that represented the main roads along with where they currently were, and where the closest Magic Shop was located.

It didn't seem very close at all…

"Sorry, there's only one Magic Shop in town, and it's in an alley right by the Inn I marked on the map," he apologized, like the Town's lack of Magic Shops was somehow his fault.

Still, it was better than nothing.

"Thanks a lot!" Lucy said with a large, face-splitting smile as she threw her arms around him in gratitude before rushing off in the direction the map specified, leaving a stunned teen in her wake.

The bickering had ceased as the two who had almost come to blows looked at their friend in shock.

The third teen's face lit up like a Christmas tree as he placed his hands on his chests tenderly. "I felt her boobs," he said, mostly to himself in a disbelieving tone. "Right here, her boobs were pressed against me right here…"

The bickering duo slowly turned to one another before coming to an understanding. A momentary truce, as it were, to right a wrong that had been so grievously committed against them – nay, against all mankind!

The first teen lunged at his friend and grabbed him in a headlock while the second began administering painful jabs into his traitorous friend's ribs amidst shrieks of pain and mercy.

He would get none, the traitor.

* * *

If any of the farmers on the outskirts of Hargeon Town were to turn their eyes skyward, they would only be mildly surprised to see what could only be described as a comet shooting across the sky at half the speed of sound.

In a land of Magic like Fiore, one quickly grew accustomed to such sights.

Travelling at such speeds, most wouldn't even be able to react fast enough and see what was making such a racket in the normally serene paddocks before it was out of their field of vision. Those who had been looking up to admire the cloudless sky or gaze off into the distance however were just able to catch the speeding projectile out of the corner of their eyes before, in just a few seconds, it disappeared over the horizon again.

Surprisingly, they all merely shrugged at the strange sight and went back to work.

Fiore was a land of magic, after all. Having been surrounded by magic in some way, shape or form for majority of their lives, it took a lot more than balls of fire to pique their interests.

Had they known, however, that this particular UFO was none other than the famed 'Salamander' of Fairy Tail, their reactions may have differed.

The comet abruptly came to a halt over an empty stretch of land revealing a young, pink-haired man with a frown marring his face as he narrowed his eyes at a building dust cloud in the distance. The flames exploding out of his hands and feet that were keeping him afloat were abruptly dismissed as he began to free-fall towards the unforgiving earth.

With nothing further stopping gravity from pulling him back to terra firma, the young man began to fall head-first towards the earth with a frown still firmly in place as the dust cloud quickly revealed itself to be someone familiar to the rosette-haired teen.

Just before he could meet a rather messy end, the young man righted himself mid-air before sending out another powerful burst of flame from his hands, momentarily reversing his momentum and causing his well-toned muscles to strain against the opposing forces acting against his body.

The abrupt and sudden landing before the familiar face earned him a frightened squeal as a reward as the young man hadn't expected anyone to drop from the sky before him in such a way. Losing his rooting, the second young man couldn't control his speed and ran face first into what felt like a brick wall in the pink-haired young man's chest.

After the world stopped spinning, the surprised young man looked up to find just the mage he was looking for. "Hey Natsu," the man greeted as he rose up and began rubbing his aching, flat nose. "Nice of you to drop by, you started wearing armour under your clothes or somethin'?"

Natsu just rolled his eyes and offered the young man a hand-up, meanwhile eyeing the ridiculously large, fur-lined brown top hat he still wore with distaste.

"That hat still looks ridiculous Jet," Natsu replied dryly. "And no, I'm not wearing armour. You just need to watch where you're going."

"Watch where I'm – no, never mind," Jet amended with a sigh as he saw Natsu raise a curious brow. Jet hadn't seen his guild-mate in months and was rather excited to be giving the task by their guild-master to intercept him and give him another mission. Actually, even before that, he hardly ever saw Natsu anymore after his infamous falling out with many of those he called 'Nakama' within the guild.

A sore topic for the pinkette that everyone knew _not_ to bring up unless you wanted your ass handed to you by the powerful young man in question.

Still, it was good to see him again, even if it was without the cheeky, face-splitting grin that used to grace his features whenever he met someone he considered a friend.

Natsu was now sporting an unbuttoned crimson jacket over his naked torso showing off a cut physique that made Jet green with envy. He also wore his trademark white, dragon-scale stylized scarf around his waist like a sash with grey pants that finished just below the knee and open-toed sandals finishing off the ensemble. Realising he was staring, Jet flushed in embarrassment as Natsu continued staring at him with a raised brow.

"You're on your own in the middle of nowhere Jet running towards my last known location," Natsu began unprompted as Jet regained his footing. "I'm guessin' you were looking for me, whaddaya want?"

"Master sent me," Jet replied woozily, still recovering from barging into Natsu at such high speeds. He'd heard from his guild mates that Natsu had learnt how to fly, but he hadn't realized he'd become so _fast_ in doing so. Jet had expected to be running for another day at least until running into his estranged guild mate. "He has a mission for you in Hargeon town he said you'd be interested in."

"What mission was so important that he had to send you out to intercept me?" Natsu asked with disinterest. The master knew that the only kinds of mission he took were ones that would help finding _her._ Asking him to perform one that did otherwise was a waste of breath.

"He said there was an unknown mage running around, committing evil deeds while using your name in the process," Jet informed Natsu as he eyed the ground surrounding them warily. Natsu's landing had done more damage than he'd initially noticed. The grass in the immediate area had been burnt to a crisp and a small crater had been formed at the base of his feet due to the force of his sudden stop.

Simply unreal.

"Not interested," Natsu denied the request immediately. He didn't care for his reputation one bit. As long as he found _her_, nothing really mattered to him anymore.

"Master said you might say that," Jet added hastily as Natsu turned in the direction of the guild and crouched low, ready to launch himself once again into the air. "He also said that if you did, to let you know that this mage is suspected of being responsible for dozens of slave rings operating around Fiore and that he impersonates you to get the attention of dozens of _young women_ who practically _throw _themselves at him thinking he's you."

Jet noticed the words had had an effect on Natsu as his entire body seemed to tense up in anger. Realising all he'd need was a little push, he pressed his advantage.

"These women… they'd be about _her_ age you know…" he said cautiously, knowing he was a treading on dangerous ground in even mentioning her. "What would she think? What would Lisa -!"

Jet never got to finish the sentence because quicker than even _he_, a mage specialising in _speed_ could follow, Natsu had ignited his hands and used them to propel himself the short distance between them in an instant before berrying his knee in his unsuspecting gut.

"Don't -!" Natsu began, fighting to control his rage. By this point, Jet had fallen to his knees, clutching his gut in pain as he look up at the enraged Natsu fearfully. The pinkette's body was trembling as he fought with the urge to strike Jet once more.

"Don't _you_ or _any one of you_ from the guild mention her name to me," he warned in a dark, threatening tone. When Jet made no reply, Natsu grabbed him by the collar of his purple shirt and pulled him up so they were face to face. "_DO YOU UNDERSTAND?_"

"Yes!" Jet replied through the pain and shock. He'd known Natsu had been harbouring some anger issues since… _then_, but to openly attack his guild mates?

'_Whatever you do, DON'T mention Lisanna,_' Mira had warned him before he had departed to find Natsu. At the time, he took the advice with only a grain of salt, but he now understood the advice she had been trying to give him and now wished he had just heeded it.

That was the hardest hit he had _ever _received in his entire life as a mage!

Mira, Erza and the Master were the only ones in the guild Natsu had really spoken to after his self-imposed falling out with them over two years ago – and by 'spoken', Jet really meant exchanged a few terse words with. Even then, as far as he knew, it was only to accept jobs, order food or dismiss one of them.

"I'm sorry," Jet apologised profusely, his voice breaking as his panic levels rose. "I didn't mean to upset you!"

Jet's placating and apologetic tone seemed to calm Natsu down enough for him to drop him unceremoniously to the ground. Despite his anger issues with the guild, Jet knew Natsu would _never_ do anything to seriously harm any of them…

Though, there seemed to be a very fine line between _harm _and _seriously harm_ as far as Fairy Tail's infamous Salamander was concerned these days.

Jet made to push his luck and ask Natsu whether he would accept the job in Hargeon town before he was almost deafened by the sound explosions coming from the fiery mage not a few feet away from him. He tried to see what Natsu was doing but only received an eyeful of dust for his efforts. Unable to do little else, Jet clasped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes protectively before curling into a fetal position and hoping for the best.

Only when the sound of rapid explosions seemed far enough away for it to be safe did Jet open his eyes once again and turn them skyward.

Jet's mouth opened in shock as he witnessed Natsu's flight technique for the first time. Jets of flame spewed out from his hands and feet, over a meter long each, as they propelled him into the sky like a rocket. When he reached roughly a thousand feet, he changed direction towards – he grinned when he realised – Hargeon town and shot off like an arrow.

Natsu hadn't even travelled fifty meters yet when the fire being expelled from his limbs exploded outwards to not only cover his entire body, but give the appearance of fiery wings sprouting from his shoulders also.

Wings like a dragon's.

Tilting his head in confusion, Jet wondered what had happened when the now fiery dragon avatar that had consumed Natsu's body had been replaced in his eyes by a large, conical white cloud.

Jet only had a few seconds to ponder this phenomenon when a powerful gust of wind rushed past him strong enough to send his hat flying and force him several steps back. Much more impressive and frightening was the sound that accompanied the wind, a serious of deep double explosions that resounded deep within his soul and got progressively quieter as Natsu rocketed further away.

Jet's magic, revolving and relying entirely on speed, allowed him a keen insight into the mechanics of lightning quick movement and aerodynamics. Thus, it was of no surprise when he understood immediately the implications of the phenomenon he just witnessed.

"He just broke the speed of sound," he muttered in to himself in a dazed tone as he looked on with slumped shoulders. He just realised he'd been thoroughly outclassed _in his own game_ by a mage who was supposed to specialise in _Fire Magic!_

"S-class mages… are on a whole other level," Jet realised in a depressed tone, as if the shockingly quick and brutal beat-down he had just received wasn't enough evidence of that.

**A/N: Unbeta'd**


	3. Chapter 002

Chapter 2:

Lucy mood got increasingly worse the closer she got to the marker on the map the nice boy had drawn for her.

She practically exploded in rage – much to the confusion of the local populace eyeing her weirdly – when she finally found Hargeon's only magic shop…

It was right next door to the Inn she was currently staying at.

Thoroughly embarrassed at having essentially wasted a day, she took a few deep breaths to calm down, smiled radiantly at the civilians that were still eyeing her weirdly and fixed her frazzled hair before stepping into the dusty old shop with an odd plaque sporting a red octopus holding a clover and the name 'Proper Grocer' emblazoned atop of it.

Her entrance was announced with a greeting of 'Welcome!' by a cute, little golem made in the shape of large-eyed chibi bird that waved at her enthusiastically with its wing.

Waving back at the lifeless magical object with a giggle, Lucy turned her attention to the shop itself and smiled in delight.

It was small, which she had expected in a town that had little use for a Magic Shop, but it looked ancient and was filled with knick-knacks that had her grinning and hopping around in glee.

While the larger magical shops found in mainstream towns like Magnolia or Crocus had a more diverse variety of goods, it was often the dinky little stores like this one that one could find a real treasure hidden amongst the regular junk in its dusty shelves.

The middle-aged gentleman at the counter was eating a steaming bowl of noodles so was delayed in greeting his newest customer.

"Welcome!" he greeted, embarrassed by his delayed greeting and Lucy grinned when she spotted a splash of red on his cheeks when she smiled and winked at him.

Travelling on her own for so long with no real source of income, a young, attractive girl like her had to make sure she utilized her 'charms' wisely less she end up on the streets. She wasn't an idiot, she had taken a fair deal of money before running away from home, but she had been on the road for a while – a lot longer than she had expected – and her supply was quickly running out.

She scanned the rows of goods with a practised disinterested eye – best not to let the shopkeeper know she wanted something he had too desperately. Several books lined the shelves, and while some seemed interesting, she hadn't the resources, not the means to buy and lug around a veritable library of books until she secured herself a permanent residence.

Along with books, the store had a fairly impressive stock of other gimmicky items. There were several cosmetic items used by women to alter their looks, from changing the colour of their clothes, the style of their hair, or even – she blushed – the size of their busts.

She needn't much help in _that _department.

Moving into another isle, she hummed thoughtfully at a rolled up piece of water-resistance material. Apparently, it was a self-assembling tent that was very popular amongst travelling mages. She sorely wished she had had such a thing at the beginning of her journey, but she didn't plan on travelling for much longer, and she didn't fancy forking out the fifty thousand jewel asking price for something she didn't think she'd get much use out of.

Quickly scanning through with little interest what must have been the travellers isle, she walked past the auto-campfires, rain-protectors and clothing infused with heated magic before moving on to another isle.

Unfortunately, this store seemed to be geared more towards travelling mages, and stocked many more items that would aid a journeyman on the road than the kinds she was looking for.

She almost gave up home when she supressed a squeal of delight at what she almost missed thrown carelessly behind a self-heating thermostat.

Gale-Force reading glasses were amongst some of the most popular magical items amongst bibliophiles such as herself. What bibliophile _wouldn't_ want a magical item that increased their reading speed and retention? Unfortunately, she hadn't known about them when living at home and when she discovered her first pair on the road, they were well over two-hundred thousand jewels for a brand new pair – far too much money and more than she'd had on her at the time anyway.

The pair she had found behind the thermostat were a little less stylish. A thick, red frame with stylized wing ornaments jutting out from the sides of the lenses with a few fake crystals embedded in them for added effect – while not exactly of the same calibre as something made by _Heart Kreuz_, their far lower price-tag made them infinitely more appealing.

They obviously weren't as good as a brand new pair, these only increasing reading speed by eight-times, rather than the _twenty_ that the newer models boasted, but at the price they were asking, it was practically a _steal_.

_Twenty-thousand jewels_ she pondered as she looked at the meagre amount of money she had left on her. She had left home with a little more than two hundred and fifty thousand and had, in the course of three months, managed to whittle away a large majority of it.

'_I only have fifty thousand left,'_ she thought with a frown. Buying these would put her lower than she was comfortable with without having joined a guild yet and securing an income…

She eyed the price-tag on the glasses again, weighing up the pros and cons before coming to a decision.

Besides, if she was _really_ strapped for cash, she could flip these glasses for double the price in another town should she so wish.

Taking the glasses to the till, she presented them to the shop keeper who accepted them with a smile and bagging it for her.

"That will be twenty thousand jewels please," the shopkeeper informed her kindly as Lucy reached for her purse. She paused, however, and grinned as she had a wicked idea.

Looking around and making sure the shop was empty of customers, she turned back to the man – somewhat handsome despite the crow's feet at his eyes and his greying temples - and gave him a cute smile while pulling her hair over her shoulder to better expose her décolletage.

"Is that the best you can do?" she asked, bringing out her sultry, bargaining voice. Bargaining was a skill she'd had to master on the road, as she was. She was infinitely better than most at it too, given the charms and the lengths she was willing to go.

"I'm sorry miss," the man replied with a strained smile. "They're already cheap enough as it is…"

His eyes travelled downwards as Lucy clasped her hands together at her waist, forcing her impressive breasts to squish together and give a mighty impressive show to the shopkeeper that would leave most men a gibbering mess.

"I…suppose I can part with them for eighteen thousa -!" his voice caught in his throat when Lucy's hands disappeared behind her back and underneath her tank top. While not daring to guess what she was doing, the action in and of itself accentuated her mammaries even further. His mouth fell open in shock when, with an audible click, the force that was previously holding Lucy's breasts secure released, relieving their hold and causing her youthful bust to sag under their own weight.

His mouth went try as Lucy pulled out a lacy white bra from her tank top's arm hole and draped it over his head. Her nipples had hardened and the tank top did a horrible job at hiding the fact. He also noticed that, with her marvellous tits stretching the material of the white tank top to its limits, that it had become somewhat transparent. Just as he'd spotted the shadow of her areolae, she covered them with her arm and gave him a saucy wink.

Finally remembering the bra that had been draped over his head, he raised a shaky hand to pull it off as Lucy asked again in her sultry voice "You're sure you can't do any better?"

Seeing he was about to refuse, she used her right hand to start pulling up the hem of her top as the man's blush finally succeeded in spreading to his whole face.

"Fifteen thousand," he proposed as Lucy paused and only raised a challenging brow in response.

The man gulped, "Thirteen thousand?" he asked with a squeak as the new price earned him several more inches or Lucy's divine, flawless stomach. She paused again at the new price with her brow raised once more.

"Twelve?" That earned him a peek at the underside of her full breasts as Lucy quickly ran out of midriff to expose with her short cut tank top. They looked so massive peeking out like that and the man felt his desire to see the perfect breasts in full skyrocket as more and more of the undersides of her breasts were exposed. Just as he was certain that her nipples were about to flop out, she paused and smirked saucily at him.

The man seemed to be at war with himself now. Lucy knew she was getting these glasses well below cost already, but she _also _knew that men – especially this one, apparently – would almost do anything to see her naked breasts. She had used that to her favour countless times on her journeys when she could, and it had yet to fail her yet.

Lucy raised a curious brow when his eyes scanned her exposed midriff once more only to widen at the sight of the gold and silver keys hanging from the loop on her belt.

"You're a Celestial Spirit mage!" he exclaimed in excitement as Lucy frowned in confusion. It was now her turn for her eyes to widen when, from behind the counter, the man produced a silver key with a hexagonal head and an odd, blue symbol engraved in the middle. "This is Nikora's key; I just bought if off a travelling mage who found it earlier today. This is my father's shop and if he found out I sold those glasses for less than twelve thousand he'll have my hide!" He pleaded as Lucy eyed the key greedily.

"You can get both for twenty thousand jewels, my old man will think I sold the glasses at full price, you'll get two amazing magical items and I'll… get to see the rest of this show," he offered as he eyed Lucy's mostly exposed breasts hungrily. "That's my final offer."

Lucy eyed the key for several more moments, pretending to ponder the decision as if she hadn't come to one already. She knew of Nikora, of course. What self-respecting Celestial Spirit mage would she be if she didn't know of the spirits she could summon? It was a key that summoned a being with no real combat utility, but what it lacked in martial prowess, it infinitely made up for in utility.

Nikora was said to have an incredibly powerful sense of smell, and those who were fortunate enough to broker a contract with the spirit were able to utilize its amazing tracking potential at will!

With a saucy grin, Lucy finished removing the rest of her tank top before flinging it aside and groping her gorgeous breasts for the shop keeper sensually.

The man's eyes widened his whole demeanour quickly changed to one exuding desire. A hand disappeared underneath the counter no doubt to rub his aching crotch as Lucy continued to bounce and grope her own breasts with a flushed face while eyeing the key on the shopkeeper's side of the counter.

It was now the man's turn to raise a challenging eyebrow earning a giggle from Lucy as she pinched her own perfect, aching pink nipples. She continued to pinch and pull at them for the man's enjoyment before bringing one of them up to her mouth and giving it a long, languid lick.

With a shudder, the man slid the key on the counter towards Lucy whose face lit up with a million-watt smile.

* * *

A now thoroughly pleased and reclothed Lucy exited the shop, making sure to send the now stupidly grinning shopkeeper a cheeky wink, with a skip to her step.

She had given little strip-teases like that one before to amazing effect, mostly to get free lodgings at town inns or free, high-class meals at notable restaurants. Never before, however, had her teasing been so fruitful.

She would have paid thirty-thousand jewels for the key alone! She essentially had it thrown in for free and all it cost her was a peek a few bags of fatty flesh.

'_Prodigious bags of fatty flesh, it would seem! Thank-you mother!'_ she thought with a sombre smile as she remembered her dearly departed mother. Her mother Layla had been extremely beautiful, desired by men all over Fiore. It was her that Lucy had to thank for her killer figure and generous… assets.

Feeling positively randy now, she decided to go back to the park she had unintentionally found earlier to cool off before she ravished the first cute boy that approached her.

Not that that would be a horrible thing, but Lucy intended to leave town tomorrow morning and head towards Magnolia, and she found that the few lovers she had taken in the past tended to be incredibly clingy the morning after.

She had an early start tomorrow, unfortunately.

Purchasing a copy of '_Sorcerer Magazine: Fairy Tail edition' _for three thousand jewels, she found a nice seat at the park to watch the sunset before beginning to read.

Ever since leaving on her journey, her goal had always been to find and hopefully join the Fairy Tail Mage guild. While not the largest in the land by a long shot, it was considered the most powerful by many with a whole host of super strong S-class mages and, she giggled, their fair share of extremely cute boys.

The best part about Fairy Tail was that it was not a predominantly patriarchal guild. Many of the strongest mages and role models in the guild were females, especially her idol…

Flicking through the magazine to the centrefold photo shoot, she sighed in content at the sight of the beautiful Mirajane Strauss. The slim, white-haired and curvaceous young woman while not having her beat in the chest department had, in Lucy's opinion, her beat in every other way. The centrefold picture itself was of the beautiful young woman in a skimpy white bikini lying on a beach and smiling at the camera with her hair splayed out around her. Her most distinctive feature, other than her radiant beauty and large blue eyes was the odd upwards ponytail obtained by gathering and tying her fringe so, she could only assume, it was kept out of her eyes.

After flicking through several more pictures of Fairy Tail's poster girl that would make any sane woman green with envy, she came upon the last one of her in a skimpy green bikini that struggled to hold back her still impressive bust. Alongside it was an interview that the reporter had conducted with the beautiful mage:

_Greetings Mira-san and thanks for doing another Interview with us!_

_Teehee, I'm always happy to help Jason-san!_

_Which is why you're our favourite, Mira-san! Okay! Now, to the interview! Question number one: What would you think is the best quality of Fairy Tail as a guild?_

_Hmm, the best quality of Fairy Tail is that everyone is really nice and it really is like one, big happy family!_

Lucy smiled wistfully at that bit of information, imagining herself surrounded by all the famous and powerful mages of Fairy Tail like one big-happy family before continuing to read on.

_Great answer Mira-san! If I may ask, what is it you wish to achieve in the future? What is your dream?_

_My dream? Hmm, I think I would like to be a singer in the future, maybe make a Fairy Tail band!_

_That's awesome Mira-san! Maybe you can perform for us one day soon!_

_I'll be sure to send you an invitation when I perform for the guild next!_

_Cooool! Okay, third question and one many of our readers are dying to know! Is there a special someone in your life? And if not, are you looking?_

_Hahaha! No, not really. I'm good friends with everyone in the guild but at the moment, my focus is entirely on making Fairy Tail the best guild in Fiore!_

_I'm sure our readers will be both delighted, and shattered to hear such a thing Mira-san! Okay, next question, do you have any regrets in your life, and if so, can you tell us a bit about them?_

_Reporter's Note: Mirajane paused for a long time after this question, and seemed hesitant to answer._

_I have many regrets, my biggest one I don't want to talk about, but another regret I can mention is losing the trust and friendship of someone I still hold incredibly dear. I only hope that one day we can be as close as we used to be._

_Reporter's Note: Unfortunately, readers, she refused to elaborate any further! But if I find out the details of the potentially juicy scoop, you all will be the first to know!_

_Okay, you've been incredibly patient in answering all of my questions so far Mira-san, if you'll answer me one more? As an S-class mage, we're all sure you've been on some very amazing, mind-boggling missions. What is the most difficult job you've been on?_

_Reporter's Note: Again, Mira-san seemed to struggle with this question, readers!_

_No comment._

_I understand! The life of an S-class mage is never an easy one. I thank you for what information you have given us at all._

Lucy sighed wistfully as she finished reading the interview.

'_Mirajane-san is so graceful and pretty, I'm so jealous,' _Lucy mentally lamented as she flicked through more of the magazine until she came upon a photo of another mage she recognized and admired, Titania Erza, the Knight of Fairy Tail and one of their strongest mages!

Not being the focus of the magazine, or the centrefold, there was only one, less flattering photo of Titania clad in her custom-made _Heart Kreuz_ armour, blue skirt and black combat boots. She had a sword impaled in the ground and rested her gauntlet covered hands atop the pommel as she looked into the camera with a serious expression. Erza had long, beautiful scarlet hair with two bangs framing her face and her fringe brushed to the side. She also had a _look_ that seemed to be permanently etched on her otherwise beautiful features that promised pain to anyone who crossed her.

If Lucy admired and idolized Mirajane for her grace, kindness and beauty, she admired Erza for her strength, discipline and infamous no-nonsense attitude. That wasn't to say that Erza wasn't also incredibly attractive, but unlike Mirajane, she didn't seem to flaunt or relish in her physical appearance – spending most of her time in the public eye clad in her extremely unflattering _Heart Kreuz_ armour. She was also famous for being the youngest mage to become S-Class rank in recent history.

Turning her eyes to the interview, she began to read with interest:

_Greetings Titania, you don't mind if I call you that do you?_

_I insist that you do, we are not familiar enough for you to address me by name._

_Hahaha, so honest Titania-san! Okay, I don't want to waste too much of your precious time, so let's get right into it. What, in your opinion, is the best quality of Fairy Tail?_

_How do you mean?_

_What would you say to others if they asked you what makes Fairy Tail a good guild to be a part of?_

_Hmm, I would say that Fairy Tail is a guild that represents Justice and always strives to do what is right._

_How very noble of you all Titania-san! Okay, next question! What are you dreams for the future?_

_My dream has always been to make Fairy Tail the most famous guild in not only Fiore, but the entire world._

_You are already well on your way to doing so, Titania-san! I hear that you are already being considered to fill in the empty spot as one of the Ten Wizard Saints. Do you wish to comment on that?_

_To me, that is just a meaningless title. I am however powerful I am, and I will use that strength to further Fairy Tail as a guild. If they wish to bestow it upon me, I will only accept if it does not impede on my responsibilities to the guild and it furthers our standing in the world._

_Ooh, a wise, if somewhat controversial answer! You never fail to disappoint Titania-san! With whom within the guild do you have the best relationship?_

_Hmm, other than the master I would say I am closest to Happy and Grey and Na-_

_Reporter's Note: Surprisingly, Titania-san cut herself off and seemed to choke up at this point. Another juicy scoop for a future edition, perhaps? Once again, if you keep buying Sorcerer Magazine, you all will be the first to know!_

_I am also close with the man who makes my new armours and weapons. I would be remiss if I did not mention his name for his work is spectacular and his magic is unlike anything I have ever seen._

_Ooh, a name drop from the infamous no-nonsense Titania-san! What is this mysterious mage's name then?_

_His name is Harry Potter, and he, along with his daughter Wendy Marvell run a Magic Shop in Magnolia Town called 'Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo'._

_What an odd name for a magic shop._

_He is an odd man, though he is extremely reliable and his magical toys are all the rage amongst the children of Magnolia._

_Hahaha, while interesting to hear about Titania-san's friends, let's get this interview back to you! Is there, perhaps, a special someone in your life? My readers would hang me up by my toes if I didn't ask you!_

_I am not interested in such things._

_Such conviction! A crying shame, I must say! With so many S-class jobs under your belt, would you share with us the most difficult one you have ever undertaken?_

_The most difficult job I've ever done? Hmm, there aren't many I would consider difficult… perhaps when I was sent to destroy three uprising Dark Guilds at the same time. They slightly tired me out._

_That answer was so cooool! One final question Titania-san, do you have any regrets?_

_Too many to name._

_Reporter's note: I must have struck a nerve with that question, my readers, for Titania-san abruptly ended our interview then and there! Be sure to get next week's issue that focus' on Titania-san and if she is as robotic as she lets us all believe!_

Lucy let out a pleased sigh as she finished reading the article. The reporter definitely got one thing right; Erza-san was so cool! Lucy only wished she could be as powerful as the crimson-haired mage!

She continued to flick through the magazine in the hopes of getting more information on some of Fairy Tail's S-class mages. Unfortunately, the women were the only ones of that rank who the reporter could get an interview with. Of the male S-class mages, there was only one that had an up-to date picture, Laxus Dreyar. He was a very tall and muscular blond with a distinctive lightning bolt shaped scar going over his right eye. The man in the photo had a pissed-off expression on his face as he glared at the cameraman with bolts of lightning arching all over his body.

While Lucy would admit he was definitely handsome, and no doubt had a body to die for, he seemed too scary for her liking.

There was another, much older picture of someone who is said to be the most powerful mage in the guild, Gildarts Clive. The photo was of the man in his teens, where he was now estimated to be in his mid-forties. He had slicked back auburn hair and a cocky smirk adorning his features as he eyed the cameraman.

There was mention of a mage by the name of Mystogan, but no one had ever claimed to see him other than the S-class mages of Fairy Tail and their master. There was, however, a sketch based off of a description Mirajane had given to a sketch artist, but it didn't show much other than a man covered from head to toe in either bandages or a cloak with three magic staves strapped to his back.

The final S-class mage of Fairy Tail also had no photo, but was also infamous across the land for his powerful fire-type magic and successful string of incredibly difficult jobs without incurring even one injury. Whispers started to circulate amongst the mages of Fiore calling him the 'Indestructible Salamander', though Lucy just thought them exaggerated.

Besides, there's no way he could be as powerful as the great Titania!

His picture was also simply ludicrous. Like Mystogan, they didn't seem to have any pictures of the infamous mage, so they had gone with a sketch artist's interpretation. The picture, which had a figure with horns and a long, snake-like tongue silhouetted and wreathed in flames and with evil, glowing red eyes, was a little ridiculous.

'_Is that supposed to be a tail?'_ Lucy wondered in exasperation when her magazine was suddenly knocked out of her hand when a pretty girl roughly her age rushed past her carelessly and snagged it with the hem of her skirt.

"Hey!" Lucy cried in indignation. The girl in question, a pretty brunette turned and apologised profusely as she knelt down to pick up Lucy's magazine. "What's the big rush? You could have really hurt yourself, especially running around in heels like that!"

"Didn't you hear?" the girl asked in excitement as she handed Lucy back her magazine. "Fairy Tail's Salamander is here and he's signing autographs!"

"Eh?" Lucy exclaimed in shock as her eyes followed the quickly retreating girl to a whole gaggle of people crowded around something near the park's fountain.

Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she followed the commotion until she caught sight of the man who must have been the infamous 'Salamander' of Fairy Tail if the fiery brooch holding his cape together was anything to go by.

The Salamander was a tall and slim man with short, spiky blue hair and a long fringe covering most of his forehead. He had sharp features, an odd, dark tattoo over his right eye that resembled a pair of tongs and seemed to exude the swagger of some kind of rock star.

Lucy didn't like him already.

Just as quickly as she'd had that thought, the man turned and gave her a winning smile.

Lucy's eyes widened as she felt her cheeks flush and her heart beat quicken. Maybe she was a little too quick to judge this man? He _was_ handsome, after all, and she was still feeling a little randy from her earlier exploits…

"Oh my! It has been an age since I've seen a vision of beauty such as you!" the Salamander proclaimed as he pushed through the crowd to get to Lucy, much to the consternation of the other women surrounding them. He then took her hand in his and placed a soft kiss upon her knuckles, supposedly, in greeting.

Lucy's breath hitched, completely ignoring the glares of the women around them as she continued to gaze into his soulful eyes. She started to feel warm all over, especially and most embarrassingly inn her loins.

Was this an effect of his fire magic?

He suddenly let go of Lucy's hand and rose on of his own in the air with a flourish before clicking his fingers. The animosity the girls had been feeling towards Lucy had suddenly vanished as they were enraptured by his mere presence once again.

"There is no need to fight, my fair ladies!" he exclaimed in a deep, sensual voice that the gaggle of girls squealed in delight at the sound of. "I am only in town for a short while, but I am having a – eh?"

The Salamander seemed to notice it first as he looked up in confusion, but the girls surrounding him weren't far behind. Lucy, too, looked up when she heard it and shrieked in horror.

'_Is that a meteor?'_ She thought in panic before remembering who she had just been flirting with. He was a fire mage, this must be a trick of his, surely!

Looking towards the infamous fire mage for an explanation, her panic only increased as he looked as distressed as everyone else around them.

"Run!" one of the love-struck girls screamed in terror. "It's coming right for us!"

Lucy knew better though, that thing was coming to them at such a speed that they'd need teleportation magic if they wanted to get out of the blast radius!

Just as the meteor came within fifty feet, the fire surrounding it suddenly vanished leaving a scowling, pink-haired human behind instead!

"Ehhhh?" Lucy exclaimed in shock as the recently identified human, still with an incredible amount of momentum, dove right towards them with his arms outstretched, wait, no…

He was diving right towards the Salamander!

Noticing this, the Salamander panicked and rose to his feet and made a run for it in panic.

"Oh no you don't!" the young man exclaimed in anger as flames burst out from his hand and feet once more with explosive force, immediately halting his rapid decent and causing him to level out. Now, only a meter above the ground, he flew like a rocket into the fleeing Salamander's back causing them to both go careening into the side of a building at breakneck speeds.

Everyone gasped and rushed over to see if the Salamander was okay and screamed in terror at what they saw. This strange young man had the Salamander face down in the dirt with his foot in his spine and his right arm pulled back at a painful angle.

"Let me go!" the Salamander yelled in fury as he attempted to dislodge the young man. "Do you know who I am?"

The young man seemed to grin at the question, but only answered by pulling his arm back further than it was ever meant to go. With a loud crack that made Lucy sick and many, especially the Salamander himself, scream in both pain and terror, the young man dislocated the Salamander's shoulder.

"I don't know shit about you," the young man admitted as he grabbed the Salamander's right hand, which Lucy only now noticed was adorned with two magic rings before wrenching them off the terrified Salamander's fingers. Magical artefacts in hand, the young man tossed them at the nearby wall with such force that they exploded in a brilliant display of sparks and glitter.

The affect was instantaneous. The minds of every girl who had been watching the systematic demolition of the infamous Salamander cleared up instantly, unsure of what had happened. Lucy was also shaking her head to clear the cobwebs out of her mind before realisation struck.

The instant dislike for the pompous Salamander and the subsequent instantaneous turnaround in emotions regarding him only meant one thing!

One of those rings had been infused with Charm magic! An illegal magic that made those of the opposite sex attracted to the caster or, in this case, those who possessed a magical artefact that cast the spell for them!

"What do you want?" the terrified Salamander screamed through shameful tears as the young man turned to the gaggle of girls still surrounding them.

"Leave!" he shouted at them in a commanding voice. After witnessing what they had, the girls didn't need to be told twice and made a run for it, all but Lucy who looked at the downed mage in disbelief.

Was _this_ what Fairy Tail mages were _really _like?

The perfect image of Fairy Tail, her dream guild, shattered in her mind as she felt tears welling in her eyes.

Had everything she had read about them been a lie? Had everything Mirajane and Erza said about the guild being a nice, loving family and standing for justice been a farce?

Before Lucy's thoughts could turn even more negative, the pink haired young man grinned before kicking the downed Salamander into the wall, no doubt breaking a few more bones in his already battered body. All the Salamander could do was moan in pain, however, his legs and one of his arms broken and mangled beyond recognition.

"I know exactly who you are _scum_," he finally replied with a downright sadistic grin. "You're the mage known as Bora, formally of Titan Nose Guild and wanted by the Magic Council for charges of Slavery and Trafficking!"

Wait a minute.

"Eeh?" Lucy exclaimed in shock, finally getting Natsu's attention.

"What are you doing here, I said leave!" he once again ordered angrily.

Ignoring him, Lucy pointed at the pale Bora in accusation, whether he looked like that out of pain or out of the realisation of how much trouble he was now in, she couldn't be certain. "Are you saying he's _not_ the Salamander, infamous mage of Fairy Tail?"

With a sadistic grin that didn't reach his eyes, the young man turned to Bora before casually lifting him up by the scuff of his shirt, much to Lucy's shock – Bora wasn't a small man, after all.

"No, this guy definitely isn't the Salamander, nor is he part of Fairy Tail," he accused with a deadly tone.

Bora attempted to spit in the young man's face, but the young man tilted his head to the side with an incredible display of reflexes to dodge it. "How could you possibly know that, scum?"

The once charming and magnanimous voice was gone now, Lucy noticed, replaced by one that radiated an evilness that sent a chill down Lucy's spine…

And to think, she had been _this_ close to offering to bed the man…

In response to the spit, the young man's eyes narrowed before retaliating with a vicious head butt that not only sent Bora instantly into the land of unconsciousness, but by the cracking Lucy had heard and cringed at, probably broke his nose too.

"I know that because I'm Natsu Dragneel, the _true_ Salamander of Fairy Tail!"

* * *

Lucy could hardly believe what followed the ruthless arrest of Bora the Dark Mage. Apparently he had been wanted by the Magic Council for a long time for his disgusting crimes of slavery and human trafficking, but he had constantly slipped through their fingers by changing his appearance, always impersonating other powerful, yet mysterious mages and constantly moving his base of operations – his yacht, it turned out.

Being a mage herself, Lucy was asked to come in too to act as a witness that would act as the final nail in Bora's coffin.

After finalising the arrest of Bora, the young man now known to Lucy as Natsu extracted as much information as he could from Bora – the method of doing so, Lucy shuddered, she'd rather forget – before rocketing off once again to deal with his accomplices.

Not even an hour passed when Natsu returned hauling a group of slavers all looking worse for wear and secured firmly with a thick rope – no doubt pilfered from the yacht he'd admitted to sinking in the process.

The local police thanked Natsu profusely, the familiarity leading Lucy to believe they had worked together in the past, before promising to escort them to the closest Rune Knight headquarters where the enforcers of the Magic Council will deal with criminals harshly.

Now with that nasty business dealt with, Lucy dropped to the ground before Natsu and bowed to him.

"What are you doing?" asked an agitated Natsu in a tone that caused Lucy to bristle.

"I'm bowing," she replied without lifting her forehead from the ground.

"Yes, I see that. You're causing a scene," Natsu replied, still highly irritated, but Lucy would not budge. "_Why_ are you bowing?"

"''mrunningoutofmoneyandyou're- !"

"Shut up!" Natsu snapped, earning a terrified squeak out of the still bowing Lucy. "I can't understand a word you're saying!"

Taking a few deep breaths, Lucy finally lifted her forehead from the ground and looked at Natsu imploringly, "Can you please take me back to your guild so I can join?" she asked in a much calmer voice and trying not to convey her desperation…

Well, trying and failing, anyway.

"Magnolia is that way," Natsu pointed over his shoulder with a deadpan stare. "The Master is a pervert, so you'll pretty much be accepted instantly. Why are you asking me?"

Eyes bugging out comically, Lucy took several deep breaths before latching onto the surprised Natsu's legs with a surprisingly strong grip.

"What the hell are you doing? Let go!" Natsu exclaimed comically, flopping around like a worm as Lucy refused to let go of his legs.

"No! Not until you take me to Fairy Tail and get me an audience with the Guild Master!" Lucy paused before grinning with a calculating look in her eye, "And putting in a good word for me!"

"No," Natsu snapped irritably, as he began prying the overly familiar girl off of him with little success.

"Please!" she pleaded, giving him her infamous kicked puppy look.

"I said no!"

"I can make it worth your whiiiiiile." She changed tactics, going from cute to sultry in an instant. She blanched, however, when he looked at her unimpressed.

"That's just sad," he replied, before suddenly spotting the chain of keys around her belt and raising a curious brow.

'_A Celestial Spirit Mage then?'_ he thought with interest as Lucy gave him the evil eye.

"Are you gay?" she accused him with a glare, miffed that he wasn't affected by your charm.

"Why? Because I'm not a fan of slutty girls?" Natsu countered with a raised brow.

"What did you call me?" Lucy screeched in rage as her grip on the annoyed fire-mage tightened.

"Why is it that slutty girls are the ones _most_ offended when you call them slutty?" Natsu fake-mused to himself aloud, only serving to further anger Lucy. "Fine, you want to hitch a ride with me to Fairy Tail, you got it," he relented with an evil grin that had Lucy temporarily forgetting her ire as a cold shiver shot up her spine. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

With an indignant skwark, Lucy suddenly found herself kissing dirt as Natsu broke her death-grip with a surge of strength. Thinking he was going to walk off and abandon her now, she squealed when she felt herself suddenly be placed over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Before Lucy could even think of protesting, fire exploded out of his feet and only one of his arms – the right focusing on securing the screaming girl to his shoulder – as Natsu then rocketed the both of them into the air and towards Magnolia town where Lucy's life as a Fairy Tail mage was about to begin.

**A/N: Unbeta'd**

**As you can see, Lucy is going to be portrayed as pretty slutty in this story. She wants to be an adult novelist in the future, so I figure I'd run with that idea and write her with that in mind. I doubt blushing virgins would make for very good authors of erotica. She will find a kindred spirit in Cana and probably Evergreen in that regard, but will still be besties with Levy. I just thought I'd put this here so people don't think I'm bashing Lucy, if anything, I'm doing the opposite and will make her spirits a little more useful and imposing. While her uselessness is funny in the manga/anime, I don't think it makes for particularly interesting narrative. **


	4. Chapter 003

Chapter 3:

Magnolia town, an ancient merchant city with a population of around sixty thousand is a town rich in life, culture and magic.

It was also the home of Fiore's most powerful guild, Fairy Tail.

The city is split up into districts by a man-made canal that snakes through Magnolia and out into the incredibly vast Lake Sciliora. The city is bordered by mountains to the east and west and sits on the shore of Lake Sciliora to the north, so unless one decided to go trekking through the mountains or going for a really, _really_long swim, the only entrances into this grand city were through the southern gate, or via the train station.

Upon entering the city one would find themselves immediately on Central Path. Central Path was an aptly named road where many festivals and parades were held that split the city in two from South to North, beginning at the main entrance to the city and ending at the doorstep of Fairy Tail's guild hall. The path itself only split once when it reached the Kardia Cathedral in the absolute centre of the city to form a wide ring around the ancient landmark. Another road intersected this ring almost as vast as Central Path that cut Magnolia in half in the other direction – from East to West – called Horizon Boulevard.

Many of Magnolia's largest and flashiest shops or attractions could be found on either Central Path or Horizon Boulevard, but that wasn't all there was to see in this beautiful city. Hundreds of smaller streets and alleyways branched off from both main roads and many a tourist would spend days getting lost on their winding paths in the search for secluded, beautiful restaurants or boutique shops.

Many of these alleyways were incredibly narrow, not much wider than six feet in fact, and connected the main roads to the small roads the lined the canals. Rare are the alleys that are straight, and most buildings lining them were four to five stories high, which made navigating incredibly difficult and getting lost frightfully easy. Thankfully, the Mayor of the city foresaw this and had purple arrows placed at every street and alleyway intersection that always pointed towards the shortest path to the city centre.

It was in one of these dark, winding alleyways where one would find the imposing figure of Erza Scarlet, Titania of Fairy Tail, clad in her trademark _Heart Kreuz_ armour and navigating these streets like it was second nature.

With the amount of times a week she visited her friends at '_Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo'_, she should be.

Erza eyed the passer-byes with a raised brow as they tried, and failed, to give the intimidating woman a wide berth. They could only sidestep so far in these narrow alleyways, after all.

'_It gets worse every time I do an interview for that annoying magazine,'_ she mused with a frown marring her sharp, delicate face. _'Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned taking down those Dark Guilds?'_

Her musings were cut short when she arrived at her destination. Triple B, as she liked to refer to mouthful of a shop by, was lit up like a Christmas tree as usual and provided much needed illumination to the otherwise dark and dreary alleyway. It was located on a fork in the narrow streets which gave the building a unique, triangular shape. The large plaque above the main entrance had the words, _'It's all Magic, believe it or not: Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo' est x781'_ neither written nor engraved, but with thousands of dancing specs of light that changed colour in synchronisation and at random.

The exterior of the shop wasn't overly large. Though four stories tall with an extra two basement levels, it was located in one of Magnolia's famous alleyways, and the blocks in here were even smaller in area than her bathroom back at her apartment in Fairy Hills.

That was what a casual observer from the outside would deduce, anyway.

They, of course, couldn't know about Harry Potter's magnificent brand of Magic.

Foregoing entering the shop just yet, she sidestepped a couple of giggling children exiting the store with bags no doubt filled with candy and peered into the display window.

Within the frosted glass was, to her immense delight, an incredibly large and mouth-watering strawberry cheesecake surrounded by several fancy glasses of parfait and two fancy looking three-branched brass candelabrums.

The cake alone would be enough to satisfy Erza's viewing pleasure. By in far Erza's favourite thing in life was to sit in silence and enjoy the greatest thing known to mankind – Strawberry Cheesecake.

A perfectly normal thing, as far as Erza was concerned.

There was nothing _normal _about what was happening in the window. The Cheesecake was spinning and dancing to an odd tune that featured the store's name while singing along as it split between layers in an eerie facsimile of lips. Even the strawberries atop the cake dislodged themselves from their position and danced to the tune.

Oh, did she neglect to mention that the glasses of parfait each had a set of arms and a face, somehow, moulded out of the contents of each glass? Did she also neglect to mention that they, too, were also singing and dancing?

If she did neglect to mention that, then she definitely neglected to mention the candelabrums, which also had a moving face etched into the surface of the middle candles, were also singing and dancing along.

As the deserts continued to dance under the light of the table ornaments a group of cute, little fairies dressed in short green dresses flew around and danced with them. They waved their tiny wands around in synch with the tune and conjured a whole array of lights and sparkles that fell and swirled around the dancing cake.

'_Please Erza-chan, eat us!'_ the cake called to her impossibly in her mind. The strawberries then decided to join in. _'We wuv you Erza-chan!'_

Shaking her head and resisting the effects of the compulsion charm Harry had no doubt placed on the cake to coax in customers, she smirked, "I've caught on to your little tricks, Harry…"

"Eek!" a startled yelp sounded beside her knocking Erza out of her musings. Standing beside her, an old broom in hand was Harry Potter's adorable little daughter, Wendy Marvell. Why they didn't share the same surname, she hadn't the heart to ask, but the sight of her always brought a smile to Erza's face.

"Have you been out here long, Erza-san?" Wendy asked in a shy voice. Wendy was a petite, twelve year old girl with brown eyes and long, blue hair often tied up in pig-tails. She was currently dressed in a short, pink yukata with thigh-high black stockings and white sandals on her tiny feet.

"Eh?" Erza looked around and frowned when she realised the streets, while once filled with people, were now suddenly empty. "What time is it?"

Wendy tilted her head at Erza curiously, "It's six thirty, we closed half an hour ago…"

"Eh?" Erza exclaimed in shock. "I was standing out here for over an hour?"

Wendy giggled as she eyed the obviously flustered S-class mage. "Did Strawberry-chan get you again?"

Erza eyed the offending cake, still dancing innocently as if it hadn't stolen an hour of her life, with a glare that screamed 'I will devour you whole!'

Wendy placed the broom she had been carrying on the ground where it lay prone for only a few moments before it started to twitch. Like a zombie rising from the dead, the catchy music playing on loop in the store window roused the broom and it, too, began to dance around as it swept the ground outside the store.

"Come on in Erza-san, Daddy is expecting you…" Wendy paused when she noticed Erza eyeing the dancing cake in the window again with a hopefully expression. "Erza-san…"

Erza's shook her head once more to clear it of the charm's effects before taking a hold of Wendy's hand, "Best we not keep your daddy waiting…"

Wendy let out a strained laugh as she nodded and lead Erza into the store, the group of fireflies spelling the word 'closed' ignored for their most valued customer.

Walking into _'Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo'_ for the first time can be an incredibly disorienting experience, the sheer impossibility of expecting a cramped, dingy store and instead walking into a space easily five times the size its outside dimensions portrayed would do that to you.

Standing vigil at the store's entrance was an impossibly large man clad from head to toe in sinister looking black plate armour covered in spikes and jagged edges. From within his spiked helm shone two, bright, glowing red eyes that promised pain and had no discernable facial features. In its massive, gauntlet-clad hand it held an eight-foot long spiked mace that looked every bit as wicked as its armour.

Erza knew from experience that there was no one inside that suit of armour – that didn't make the thing dubbed Mordekaiser any less intimidating or dangerous in her eyes.

"Watch over the store, Morde-chan, we'll be downstairs with daddy," Wendy ordered the giant suit of armour without a care in a world as it rumbled its ascent.

Less comfortable around the ludicrously dubbed 'Morde-chan', Erza walked past it without letting her guard drop for even a moment. She had seen in the past the destruction it was capable of, and while she'd admit it made for an excellent deterrent for shoplifters and guardian for Wendy when Harry was away, that didn't mean Erza would trust it.

Nodding politely at the portraits that nodded that greeted her as she passed them by, Erza only took a cursory glance at the shelves filled with candy, toys and potions before descending into the basement below where Harry was apparently waiting for them.

The duo felt the ground shake as a small explosion resounded from the basement. Unconcerned, Wendy supported herself with an arm against the wall and continued to descend as if this was an everyday occurrence.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw a man that could only be Harry with his back to them reading from a levitating book as he carefully added ingredients to a large, simmering cauldron.

The workshop that doubled as an office, while not exactly a mess, was filled to the brim with odds and ends Harry had either created or procured on his journeys. In the centre of the room was his finely carved wooden desk and high-back chair, and beside it was a solid gold perch on which a brilliant crimson phoenix sat perched and eyed them with frightfully intelligent black eyes.

Atop the desk sleeping on comfy-looking lavender cushions was a white cat with regal features wearing a yellow and red top, pink bow-tie and a pink ribbon fixed to the tip of her long tail. This particular cat was Carla, Wendy's talking and flying cat companion that had been by her side since before she could remember.

Non-humans aside, the office housed all sorts of odds and ends that Erza could make no sense of, chief of which were a series of silver instruments that whirred and periodically emitted small puffs of smoke all throughout the day.

The circular wall was covered in bookshelves three times her height and stocked to the brim with old, dusty tomes – all of which he claimed to have read. In fact, there were only four places in which the walls weren't covered by bookshelves, and if one were to look at the floor plan of the room as if it were the face of clock, then they would be at twelve, three, six and nine o'clock respectively.

They had entered from six o'clock while three and nine had doors leading to a bathroom and a bedroom respectively. It was what was at twelve o'clock that was most interesting.

A currently unlit fireplace with an incredibly elaborate mantelpiece crafted in the likeness of two gryphons holding up a beautifully carved oak cross-piece and atop that another living portrait.

The portrait was of a man that Erza could only describe as the quintessential wizened wizard from the tales of old. Pointed hat, gold half-moon spectacles, twinkling blue eyes, glowing silver hair and beard and the most absurd robes she had ever seen – purple and decorated with shimmering stars. Harry had once told her the man's name, but it was absurdly long and difficult to remember. Still, she nodded to him politely nonetheless.

'_I must have Harry make me some clothes with moving patterns on them,'_ Erza idly mused as the old man nodded back with a grandfatherly smile and twinkling eyes. Finally, she cleared her throat to announce their presence to the oblivious young-man.

"I know you're there, Erza," Harry said with amusement as he sprinkled something into the cauldron which caused a blue puff of smoke to waft out of it in a mushroom cloud. "I was just curious to see how long you'd wait before saying anything."

Sensing her annoyance, Harry snorted in amusement before pulled out a wooden stick fifteen inches long and pointed it at the cauldron. The fire died down, as did the smoke, allowing Harry to dip a finger into its contents and pop into his mouth. He seemed pleased enough judging by the pleased sound that came from his throat.

Harry Potter was a young man of medium height that had, in Erza's opinion, an incredibly odd dress sense for someone his age. Today he wore a crimson, tartan-styled waistcoat and matching tie over a white, long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top button undone. The shirt was tucked into a pair of form-fitting beige pants and he wore a pair of brown brogue shoes on his feet.

He had an incredibly unique shade of green eyes that he hid mostly behind a pair of horn-rimmed seeing glasses while his medium-length hair resembled a bird's nest more than any hair style she'd ever seen. He also hadn't shaved in a while – if the odd patches of growth were anything to go by – and likely wouldn't unless his daughter forced him to.

"Hey Poppet," Harry greeted the furiously blushing Wendy as he walked over to her and kissed her forehead. He knew how much that pet name embarrassed her yet insisted on using it in front of company. "How was work?"

"Busy," Wendy answered with a slow, suspicious tone at the look in her father's eyes. "Why?"

"Oh no!" Harry exclaimed dramatically with a hand over his heart. "Erza, my adorable little girl is already suspicious of her loving father's affections! It won't be long until she enters her rebellious teenager phase and will want nothing to do with me!"

Both girls rolled their eyes at his antics and while Carla, apparently no longer asleep, cracked one eye open and glared at Harry.

"Keep it down drama queen, some of us need our beauty sleep," the grouchy cat groused before closing her eye once again.

Seemingly over his dismay, Harry replied, quick as a whip, "Surely you jest! If you gain any more beauty any cat with half a mind will spontaneously combust at the mere sight of you!"

Wendy failed to stifle a giggle at the flush creeping up on the tongue tied Carla's face. Not wanting to admit defeat _again_ in their verbal spars, the cat rolled over, refusing to allow Harry to see how pleased she was with the compliment.

"As for you," Harry said, turning to his daughter with a proud smile. "Want to see a magic trick?"

Wendy rolled her eyes, fully expecting her father to do something lame once again when he clapped his hands together. Erza hiked a brow up in surprise however as she felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingling at the magic in the air.

Wendy gasped as a bright light shone from between Harry's clasped hands as he slowly pulled them apart revealing a thin, rectangular box with a ribbon on top and a small card attached to it with a string.

"This is for all your hard work Poppet," Harry said with a smile as he gave her the present. "I'm proud of you Wendy."

Wendy felt the stinging sensation in her eyes that was synonymous with tears before wiping them away with her forearm and scanning the card quickly that read 'Love you, Daddy'.

Opening the box, she gasped in delight at the cute red dress within. Discarding the box, she held it against her frame and turned to Erza with a radiant smile. "How does it look Erza-san?"

"It looks beautiful, Wendy-chan," Erza assured with a smile and a ruffle of the blushing girl's hair.

Making sure to give her father a crushing hug in thanks, she ran over to her sleeping feline companion and clasped her paw in her hand.

"Come Carla! I'm going to go try this on!" She gave no warning before bolting towards her bedroom on the fourth floor, a hissing and whining Carla in her wake. "Thanks Daddy," she made sure to yell out again over her shoulder. "I Love you!"

Erza smiled at the young man as he eyed the spot his daughter had just occupied with a warm smile.

"You're a good father," Erza complimented before realising it and both blushed in embarrassment as a result. She had been thinking it but she hadn't actually meant to say it.

'_God, how embarrassing,'_ Erza bemoaned internally as Harry laughed nervously.

"That means a lot coming from you Erza-san," he thanked honestly before grinning cheekily at her. "I see you couldn't help yourself. Foiled by Strawberry-chan again, eh?"

Erza gained a look of superiority and began to tell him that she had finally beaten his infernal charm from hell but found she couldn't as she had a mouth full… of… cake.

"What the hell?" Erza exclaimed in astonishment as she looked at her hand where, indeed, she was nursing a plate with her favourite Strawberry Cheesecake in the world. "How did – when did - I never -!"

Harry let out a bell-aching laugh at the look on Erza's face and subsequently brushed off her glare as her hair began to swiftly change colours from red to green, to yellow, to orange and then blue before returning to red and repeating the cycle.

"Oh don't give me that look, you know you love it," he admonished with an eye roll before, with a wave of his hand he conjured a spoon and took a bite himself and sighing in content. "Perfect, as usual."

Erza narrowed her eyes before shovelling the rest of the cake down her throat before he could steal another bite. By this point, both their hairs were shifting colours while Erza's also swayed, twirled around, tied and untied itself into and out of knots.

Harry's eyes danced with amusement before he turned only a little more serious and motioned to her face, "How's the eye feel?"

"It's a little itchy," she admitted as Harry nodded and slipped his wand from his sleeve again and pointed it at her eye. The glamour charm over her right, normally brown eye faded away revealing a glowing blue one. He muttered a few more words under his breath and Erza's breath hitched when she lost vision once again out of her right eye and saw it float right out of its socket and into a beaker of bubbling brown liquid Harry had procured from his ingredients cabinet.

As a child, Erza had lost her right eye in a tragic incident she had told no-one but Harry about and had lost all hope in regaining it when Master Makarov's old friend and experienced healer Porlyusica informed her that without the original eye, there was little they could do.

So, for years, Erza had been forced to adapt to having only one eye and had chosen to cover the empty socket with an eye-patch so as to not frighten her guild-mates or the guild's clients. That all stopped when she – by some divine will, she was convinced – stumbled upon Harry and his mysterious shop.

'_Something wrong with your eye?'_ he had asked her rather tactlessly, but he had seemed to know the answer without her even saying anything.

'_So why don't you just get a new one?'_ the question was posed so simply that she honestly couldn't form up an answer for it. It wasn't every day she was asked something so preposterous, so absurd that it left her speechless.

Well, one could imagine how foolish she looked when, not a weak later, Harry had already made a working prototype – for free, too, on the condition that she only came to him for her weapons and armour needs from now on.

She had agreed almost immediately, provided the eye worked.

And oh, did it work.

Taking a seat, she watched as Harry moved around his office like a honeybee, added a pinch of this, and a dollop of that to the jar holding her eye while simultaneously reading from a book that levitated in front of him.

He walked over to the magnificent and regal looking Phoenix on its perch and whispered a few choice words into its ear while holding a test tube beneath its eye. Harry stroked his feathers in appreciation when the majestic creature let loose a few pearly white tears into the tube.

Walking back over to the beaker her eye was soaking in – the liquid having since turned a sickly yellow – he used a dropper to put exactly three drops of the Phoenix's tears into the mixture.

"Okay, that'll need around ten minutes," Harry updated her as he snatched a strange pair of goggles with multiple lenses from one of the many cabinets littering the room and placed them over his head after removing his glasses. While still fiddling with the settings on his goggles he said, "Okay, come over here and let me have a look at you."

With his goggles at the appropriate setting he turned and shrieked in alarm when he realised Erza was right in his face. His heartbeat quickened and he felt hot behind the ears at their closeness but Erza remained unaffected.

The young woman had little to no modesty for someone so socially awkward, or maybe it was _because_ she was so socially awkward that she lacked it? Either way, the fact that she had no idea the effect she had on the opposite gender was one of her more endearing qualities.

"Is this too close?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

Coughing into his hand, Harry replied in the negative and motioned her to sit on the recliner-styled chair he had conjured out of thin air. Erza admired the feat of magic for several moments before taking a seat. Harry spent the next several moments examining the empty socket while muttering under his breath.

"This is going to sting," Harry warned her as he uncorked a vial he pulled from his supply and sucked up several drops with his dripper. Erza nodded, unafraid as he held her eyelid open and put several drops of the potion on some incorrectly healed veins and tissue. The potion hissed upon making contact with the affected areas causing Erza's hands to clench, but she otherwise made no verbal response.

"That should do it," Harry commented as he continued to eye the empty socket with a professional eye. Nodding in satisfaction, he turned to the artificial eye that now sat in an empty beaker and levitated it over to him. "You know the drill."

Erza winced as she prepared for the odd sensation of having an eyeball forced into her empty socket and having Harry's odd magic attach it to her nerve endings. The process took several minutes, but she knew it worked because, suddenly, she had vision in both eyes again.

"How's that feel?" Harry asked as he conjured a small mirror and held it before her.

Erza thought about it as she studied the now bright green eye, very similar in colour to Harry's own, before answering. "Pretty good," she admitted with a smile closing her eye and prodding the eyeball over her lid and around the socket to see if it felt any different to her normal eye.

It didn't.

"It actually feels pretty amazing," she admitted with a smile. "I can't tell any difference between the two now."

"Oh?" Harry asked in amusement. "We can't have that now, can we?" He put a hand behind his back and made a fist.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

She grinned as her new eye shone with power. "None," she answered proudly and Harry laughed.

"Ah, I'm amazing," Harry admitted with a cheeky grin.

"You are," Erza confirmed so earnestly that Harry found himself once again blushing.

"Okay, sit tight and I'll put the glamour back on," Harry instructed but Erza ignored him and stood instead.

"There's no need for that," Erza assured him with a smile. "I really like this colour. Brown is boring, anyway."

Whether unintentional or not, Harry found himself blushing like a teenage boy again at her compliment. "Ah, if that's what you want…"

"It is!" She confirmed with a radiant smile. "I didn't think you'd actually be able to pull it off, but you did it! It works just like you said!"

"Ha-ha, it's nothing special; just make sure you come here for your armour – oh shite!" Harry exclaimed, causing Erza's eyes to widen in surprise at the gleeful look that suddenly overcame Harry's features. "If you think I'm awesome now, wait until you see _this_!"

Harry disappeared into his room only to reappear moments later lugging a mannequin alongside him with a brand new set of beautifully crafted armour.

"Go ahead, requip it so I can fit it to you," Erza wasted no time in doing as she was told, suddenly feeling as giddy as Harry looked. With but a thought, both her and the mannequin were enveloped in a blinding, golden light before it quickly faded revealing Erza in the newly crafted set of armour.

"I call it the Valkyrie armour," Harry informed her as he conjured a full-length mirror so Erza can admire it as he worked. The armour was predominantly gunmetal grey in colour and lined with fur trimmings all over. The helm left only her mouth and jawline uncovered, even going so far as to completely cover her eyes, yet she could see as if she were not wearing a helm at all.

The chest-piece was much smaller than Harry would have liked, but Erza explicitly insisted that any armour he made for her leave the midriff and pelvic area unrestricted less it hinder her flexibility. His grumblings that that completely defeated the purpose of armour were summarily ignored.

Doing the splits or summersaults with full plate greaves or chest piece _would_ be rather difficult, he supposed.

So, the chest-piece ended only slightly below her breasts – Harry tried incredibly hard not to blush at having to adjust for the larger than expected breasts – but provided more than enough protection for her shoulders, upper arms and neck. The gauntlets reached up to her upper arm and were adjusted to allow for full manoeuvrability while the elbows had stylized wings similar to the ones on the helm.

Tights were worn underneath the greaves and boots to prevent chaffing while the greaves protected her upper legs and pelvic area and the boots protected everything from the knee-down. Wrapped around her waist was a fur-trimmed wyvern-skin skirt that was held up by a heavy belt with an intricate carving of stylized wings on the buckle. The skirt was cut short in the front and fell as low as her ankles at her rear.

"The battle skirt was Wendy's idea," Harry admitted as he fired spells at various places all over the armour, forcing it to contour to her body's measurements perfectly. "She thought you'd like it."

"I do," Erza admitted in a breathless tone. The armour looked almost as fearsome as Mordekaiser's, yet still held a beauty about it that Erza thought rivalled some of her other sets of armour.

"How does it feel?" asked Harry as he finished making adjustments. With a flick of his wand, he pushed back the tables, chairs and piles of books to give her a little more room to feel out the Valkyrie armour.

Erza bounced on the heels of her feet and found, with a frown, that the armour is impossibly light.

Seeing her lips set into a straight line, Harry quickly deduced Erza's concerns. "Hey Erza?"

The young woman in question turned to him only to let out a surprisingly girly shriek of surprise when Harry conjured a cannonball with his wand and fired it at her chest faster than she could possibly hope to dodge. The impact sent Erza hurtling into one of the many bookshelves lining the walls, destroying it and sending many of the ancient tomes they held all over the place.

Erza recovered quickly and got into a defensive position as she glared daggers at Harry. "What is the meaning of this?"

Harry only raised an amused brow at her question as he twirled his wand between his fingers. "My, my Erza-chan, you look rather fit and healthy for someone who was hit with a cannonball from point-blank range, don't you think?"

At his statement, Erza's hand shot to her chest and examined her new armour.

Not a single scratch.

"I assure you, at that distance the cannonball would have shot right through you if you weren't wearing that armour," he informed the disgruntled woman with a grin. "Pretty heavy duty, wouldn't you say?"

"How is it so light?" she asked with a frown as she did several jumping jacks before performing a series of stretches to test her flexibility.

"Magic," Harry answered simply with twinkling eyes as if that was a sufficient answer. "I can't go and tell you all my tricks."

Erza rolled her eyes in annoyance, by now used to Harry's mysterious ways. She continued to do a series of light stretches as the duo fell into a comfortable silence. Satisfied with her flexibility, she turned to Harry with a nod and an expectant grin.

"What? Unbreakable and lightweight enchantments aren't enough for you?" Harry asked with a teasing grin and put his hands up in surrender she – he assumed – gave him a mock glare. "Fine, fine. So mean. Try channelling magic to the shoulder plates."

Wary of his look of barely supressed glee she did as he asked and felt the oddest sensation she had ever felt in her life. It felt as if she had gained two extra limbs that she could feel and control just as well as her arms. Looking over her shoulder she gasped at the sight of a beautiful, ethereal, angelic wing sprouting out of her shoulder plate. She looked to her other shoulder plate and laughed at the sight of another one.

With tiny amount of concentration, she focused on moving them while keeping her arms still. It was an odd sensation, but she laughed again when she saw and _felt_ them responding to her demands and even kicking up a bit of wind!

Wait…

"Harry."

"Yes Erza," Harry replied with a cheeky grin.

"These wings are real?" she asked in a shaky voice as she reached a trembling hand out to caress the soft appendage. The wing also responded to her subconscious demand and furled around her shoulder to be caressed. It felt like silk, while she had expected to feel feathers, but they _felt _real despite their ghostly appearance.

"I don't see the point of giving you, Titania Erza, wings that don't work - oomph!" Erza, in her joy, had rushed over to Harry and hugged him to her chest in gratitude. If her natural, superhuman strength wasn't bad enough, the extra power given to her by her new suit of armour made the action more painful than enjoyable.

Then again… there was only a piece of metal between him and Erza's breasts…

"You're welcome," Harry replied with a rub to his chest as the smiling Erza finally let him go. "You asked for a suit of armour that increased your general combat capabilities, well, this does that. It increases your strength, speed and durability immensely and, as you can see, it'll also allow you to fly."

"I guess I won't need that broomstick anymore," Erza teased with a cheeky grin that Harry mirrored.

"Obviously not," Harry conceded with a not. "However, as you no doubt know, those wings will only work so long as you have magic. Be sure not to run out of it while you're three thousand feet up in the air!"

"Duly noted," Erza replied with a confident smirk.

"Those wings will also take some getting used to," he fussed over her as he were her mother, checking over the suit of armour one last time before allowing her to part with it. A feeling of warmth spread through her being at the care he showed for her and she smiled genuinely at the man who had done so much for her. "Don't go jumping off cliffs either until you're certain you've got the hang of flying! Hey, are you listening?"

"Yes mother," she replied with a teasing grin. "No dangerous flying until I've practised with the wings. Got it."

"Good," Harry said with narrowed eyes, suspecting the normally strict and no nonsense young woman was actually making fun of him but decided to let it slide.

"How much do I owe you?" Erza asked in a soft voice, and it was only then did Harry realise the two had been silent and staring into each other's eyes for almost a minute before she had opted to speak. Noticing his hands were will on her shoulders, he removed them as if burnt and did a quick about-face in a vain attempt to hide his blushing features.

Surprisingly, Erza, too, felt her face go warm but couldn't understand why. Feeling a little vulnerable and embarrassed for the first time around Harry, she was immensely thankful that her new armour covered most of her face.

"It's on the house," Harry said with a careless shrug as he began to put everything back in its place with a swish and twirl of his wand.

"I normally pay a million jewels for armour half as good and detailed as this!" Erza proclaimed with alarm as she advanced on Harry and grabbed his arm. "I can't just take it for free!"

"Please, don't be silly," Harry admonished with a bop on her head. "With your interview with Sorcerer Magazine last week, and your brilliant name drop, business has gone through the roof. It's the least I can do to repay you!"

"I can't accept this fine piece of craftsmanship for nothing," Erza said in a tone that brook no argument. Her sense of justice and fair play would not allow it.

Unfortunately, she had met her match in the stubbornness department in Harry Potter.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal," Harry began with a smirk. "Wendy adores you and as much as I hate to admit it, she needs more than her dorky father keeping her company if she's going to have a happy childhood. If you promise to come and visit her more often I'll accept that as payment."

"I would do that anyway!" Erza countered furiously. "You will accept payment and that's final!"

"Nope."

"Yes. You. Will!"

"No I won't.

"I will leave the armour if you do not allow me to pay for it!"

"That would be such a shame," Harry lamented with a theatrical sigh. "I have no use for it anymore; I guess I'd have to throw it out."

Erza gasped in shock before narrowing her eyes at him in annoyance.

"Wendy will be heartbroken; she hoped so much that you'd love the little changes and additions she made to it." Harry said with another theatrical sigh. "She'll be crying for weeks, and she'll probably blame it all on me and never speak to me again… our little family will be ruined…"

"Alright! I'll take the damn armour!" Erza exclaimed in outrage as she used requip to store it in a pocket dimension before donning her standard, everyday day _Heart Kreuz_ armour. "You're impossibly stubborn, you know that?"

"Pot, kettle," he replied with a cheeky grin as he leaned back into his throne-like chair. "Now, as much as I enjoy your company, I need to start with Wendy's home-schooling, so, if there's nothing else?"

"You home-school Wendy?" Erza asked in surprise before shaking her head and smiling at Harry. "I don't know why I'm surprised. You really _are_ a good father."

Feeling his face heat up once again, he chuckled nervously and looked away from her piercing gaze modestly. "Oh," Harry remembered, eyeing a pink box sitting on a small table to his right, "I almost forgot, take this with you. I made it for you anyway."

The pink box floated towards her and she peeked inside to see a strawberry cheesecake with one slice missing.

Taking the box graciously, never one to turn down the magnificence that was cheesecake, she bowed at him in thanks.

"You spoil me too much, Harry Potter."

"Anything for you," Harry replied with smile as Erza tilted her head in confusion. Realizing what he'd just said, his face lit up like the sun. "I mean, because you're my favourite customer, I mean, most valuable customer, because you're here a lot and I like it, err, I mean Wendy likes it, yeah."

Giggling at his bumbling antics, she walked around his desk to give the blushing young man a strong one-armed hug as thanks before departing with a bow and a promise that she'd see him soon.

All was silent as Harry waited for Erza to leave the premises completely before he put his head in hands and let out a long, shaky sigh.

"Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

Fawkes, sensing his friend's distress trilled an uplifting song that did very little to ease Harry's soul crushing sorrow.

"Thanks for trying buddy," Harry offered his immortal companion with a tired and weary grin.

* * *

"Yo, Gray!" a deep masculine voice resounded through the guild hall as the black-haired teen swivelled in his stool to face the giant young man addressing him.

Fairy Tail's guild hall was as lively as usual. Dozens of her mages littered the building either in groups, seated at the long, wooden tables, drinking on their own at the bar like Gray or perusing the request board beside the bar.

Grey Fullbuster was one such mage, a young man eighteen years of age; his most distinct features were his spiky black hair and sharp, dark-blue eyes. His signature white coat was placed carefully on the stool next to him and he was dressed in a purple, button-down shirt and olive-green cargo pants.

"What's up Elfman?" Gray addressed his guild mate in his usual dry tone.

Elfman was a huge, heavily muscular young man the same age as Gray with long white hair that he styled upwards in wavy spikes. He generally wore a dark blue jacket over a red shirt and baggy, navy pants. Unlike most people, however, he generally forewent wearing normal shoes and stuck with his signature geta sandals.

"Nothing much, just wondering if you wanted to do a job together or go train some?" he looked around before frowning. "Where's Cana, she's normally with you."

Grey smirked before swivelling about around in his chair and motioned to the stool next to him. "She's got another hot date tonight."

Elfman took the seat and banged the bar to get his sister's attention. "Mira-nee! Get me the usual!"

Momentarily pausing from cleaning a dozen or so pints, Mira turned to her brother and smiled, "Coming right up Elf-niichan!"

"Another date, eh?" Elfman asked with a suggestive smirk. "That's the second one this week."

"You know Cana," Gray replied with a chuckle as he took a sip from his frozen coke. "She's worse than us."

"I'm not complaining," Elfman quipped with a perverted giggle as Mira served up his usual caramel flavoured protein shake while eyeing him shrewdly.

"You two aren't getting up to any trouble, are you?" she asked in an accusatory tone.

Grey and Elfman just sipped at their drinks, the latter wagging a finger at his overbearing sister, "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to Nee-chan!"

"Ugh, you guys are disgusting!" Mira exclaimed with a faint blush while throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. She knew exactly what their 'antics' usually involved.

They chuckled at the barmaid's exasperation before going back to their drinks in silence.

Grey and Elfman had been friends for years, ever since the Straus siblings had joined the guild all those years ago. However, while they'd been friends, they'd never been incredibly close – not like Gray was with Cana or Erza or _used _to be with Natsu.

The same could be said for Elfman.

Natsu's falling out with the guild had been horrible. Sure, he and Gray always used to fight and butt heads, but it was more of a sibling rivalry than any real animosity between the two.

After Natsu had broken down and stormed out of the guild, and their lives, on that fateful day, Grey had missed the male companionship he took for granted from the pink-haired fire-mage. Thankfully, Elfman had been hit the same way with Natsu's departure, and their shared need for male companionship within the guild brought them closer together than they ever were to the point that you hardly saw one without the other.

They had since formed a team with Cana. They ate together, trained together and even took jobs together. They even shared bed-mates, on occasion, with an obligatory 'no-homo' fist-bump.

They were brothers in everything but blood, closer than they had ever been.

That didn't mean they both still didn't miss Natsu though.

Everyone at the guild did. He was like the glue that held the rag-tag bunch of misfits together. If Mirajane was the female poster girl/mascot of Fairy Tail, Natsu was the male version.

He used to embody everything that Fairy Tail stood for. Honour, Justice and blowing things the fuck up – with style!

His most valued cherished belief though was that one should never give up on their comrades. One's comrades were one's family, and he's rather die before giving up on his family.

Natsu's breaking down at Lisanna's funeral had been heart-wrenching, his subsequent bout of rage a complete shock.

He had disappeared for several months after that incident only to return and blitz the S-class trials on his own and become one of Fairy Tail's elite.

Gray and Elfman were quickly brought out of their musing at the sound of a deep rumbling in the distance.

"Do you hear that?" Grey asked with a frown.

Elfman's eyes widened but he only nodded in response.

The doors to the guild hall burst open and in flew a small blue cat with white wings and a green pouch tied around his neck.

"He's here!" the little blue cat cried in jubilation.

"What're you talking about Happy?" One of Fairy Tail's senior members, Macao, asked in bewilderment.

"Natsu's back, aye!" Happy exclaimed in joy as the inhabitants of the guild hall didn't even have time to gasp as a fiery comment smashed through the ceiling and landed on the floor in a crouch, an unconscious and incredibly attractive blonde haired girl hanging over his shoulder.

The whole guild was silent as Natsu's eyes roamed the floor with a neutral expression until they landed on an excited Happy and he smiled.

"Hey little guy," Natsu greeted as Happy glomped him and started licking his face in greeting.

"I missed you, aye!" Happy proclaimed with big, watery eyes.

Natsu's grin faded as he sighed dejectedly. "I know buddy, but I got you a present!"

Happy's eyes widened in joy when from behind his back Natsu produced a silver fish as long as his arm and as thick as his torso. "Ta-da!"

"Is that a Silverback Puckerfish?" Happy asked Natsu reverently, not able to believe his eyes.

"You bet it is! You'd think I'd forget your favourite?" Natsu asked with a grin as he held the fish just out of Happy's reach, taunting the little cat. Everyone else in the guild watched on in baited breath. It took very little to set off Natsu these days; they hoped seeing Happy would put Natsu in a good enough mood that he wouldn't take his anger out on any of them. "Ah-ah-ah! You know the rules! Have you been training?"

Happy nodded fervently, his eyes never leaving the fish.

"What's your time?"

"Five point six seconds!" Happy announced proudly, his chest puffing out and his angelic-like wings growing larger, indicating his increased magical capacity.

"I'll be testing you later, you better not be lying," Natsu warned with the scariest look he could muster. Happy shivered in fright and shook his head rapidly.

"I'm not lying!"

"You beat your time by one and a half seconds," Natsu said, letting the statement hang as he appraised Happy for several moments. "Not bad, here, you've earned it."

"Yahoo! You're the best Natsu!" Happy cheered as he caught the massive fish hurled at him by the tail, flung it over his shoulder in an impressive display of strength for one of his size, and headed over to the bar to have Mirajane prepare the way he loved it.

Seeing that everyone in the guild's eyes were on him, he scowled and snapped, "What're you all looking at? Go find something else to do!"

"**NATSUUUU!"**A thunderous voice boomed as a twenty foot tall incredibly muscular giant appeared behind Natsu. **"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO USE THE DOOR AND STOP BREAKING MY GOD-DAMN ROOF?"**

"I dunno, lots?" Natsu replied with a careless shrug as he dropped the unconscious Lucy to the ground before the lumbering giant that began to rapidly shrink until in its place was an incredibly short, elderly man with black eyes, a ridiculous blue and orange striped hat covering his balding head and a thick white moustache.

This diminutive elderly man was Makarov Dreyar, Guild Master of Fairy Tail and one of the Ten Wizarding Saints.

"Maybe you should learn and build a hatch for me up there or something?"

"Maybe you can learn to use the front door you cheeky brat!" Makarov shot back furiously.

Natsu shrugged but otherwise didn't make any signs of acknowledgement.

"And who's this?" Makarov asked, motioning to the unconscious girl at their feet.

"Oh yeah, I think she said her name was Luigi? I dunno, but she's a Celestial Spirit Mage and said she wants to join the guild," he replied, surprising Makarov greatly. Celestial Spirit Mages were incredibly rare, after all. "She wouldn't leave me alone until I brought her here, well, here she is. Do whatever you want with her."

With a careless shrug, Natsu turned and climbed the stairs in the guild hall to get to the second level reserved for S-class mages only. The second floor was more a mezzanine level that ran across the edges of the guild hall that had its very own request board for incredibly difficult missions.

"We still need to talk about your mission!" Makarov yelled angrily. "You can't just fly back in here after a three-year job and not expect to report to your guild master about it!"

Lucy began to stir, the loud voices doing their job at rousing her from unconsciousness while Natsu casually waves over his shoulder signifying he'd heard Makarov.

As Lucy came to, it was to the sight of Makarov Dreyar looking at Natsu's retreating back with weary, sorrowful eyes then turned happy in an instant at the sight of her.

"I hear you want to join Fairy Tail?"

**A/N: Unbeta'd **

**I really, really had to force this chapter out. It just wouldn't flow for me, I dunno. I also pushed to get this done before I went to sleep so it's crazy late and I expect to have left a tonne of mistakes with the amount of times I did, and redid whole paragraphs because I was unsatisfied with them.**

**Naturally, I could go over a chapter a million times and still find something I'm not satisfied with, but whatever.**

**We get to see Harry for the first time in this chapter. He's a bit cooky, and carrying his own baggage. I drew inspiration for him from Urahara and Ishin from Bleach – a cooky shop owner and a somewhat overbearing, overly-doting yet incredibly well-meaning and protective father.**

**Don't ask why things are the way they are. If I think they need to be revealed for plot purposes, I'll do it during the plot. I won't break narrative to explain the AUness of this story if I don't have to.**

**Also, I looked up all of Erza's armours and a few of them say they grant her 'temporary' flight. I'm just rolling with that the wings on them let her glide at best and any temporary flight she's shown in canon is a result of her telekinetic ability.**

**The special abilities of the Valkyrie armour are mostly in the wings, and will be revealed during fights to make them more interesting.**

**Feel free to point out errors, as I've said, there are bound to be many.**


	5. Chapter 004

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait, this chapter ended up being far longer than I thought it would be. I wanted to get some more Harry/Erza action in this one, but the latter only just showed up towards the end and I didn't want to rush character development to get Mister Potter screen time.**

**Harry, Erza and Natsu will feature heavily in the next chapter.**

Chapter 4:

Lucy couldn't hide her giddy smile from the world even if she tried.

Ever since officially becoming a mage of Fairy Tail after only a brief explanation of her abilities as a Celestial Spirit mage – and a not-so-subtle look at her cleavage from a dirty old pervert of a guild master – Lucy had to fight the urge to run around the whole of Magnolia town screaming her joy to the world.

It wouldn't do to let her new guild-mates think she was crazy, a lunatic, or both. . .

Speaking of, almost as soon as the lovely Mirajane had officiated her joining with a pink magical stamp of the guild's logo on the back of her right hand, Lucy had set out to meet and introduce herself to her new family, as Makarov called it.

With a face-splitting smile in place, she had set to do just that.

While a little daunting a prospect, Lucy would never be confused as shy unless confronted by an incredibly cute boy or a woman of Mirajane's or Titania Erza's stature. While that eventually made the greeting process easier, it was still a little intimidating to have had a room full of strangers eyeing her with undisguised interest.

Her smile dimmed slightly as she looked to the bar and spied Natsu talking in hushed tones with the guild master, ignoring her presence and joining completely. She couldn't make out his facial expression, but judging by the hushed tone their conversation was held at, and the serious expression on the diminutive guild master's face – which looked utterly ridiculous while he wore that stupid hat – she figured it was pretty important.

She had hoped Natsu would have helped ease her into the guild and introduce her to her guild mates, but after dropping her off in the hall, the pink-haired Salamander of Fairy Tail hadn't even glanced in her direction – and her less than graceful arrival had since been regaled to her several times by her chuckling guild-mates, much to her annoyance.

Thankfully, a slender young woman had decided to take pity on her and approached her with a friendly smile. The girl looked to be around her age with wavy, blue hair tied back with an orange bandana and wore a cute, orange knee-length dress.

Levy McGarden proved to be a cheerful and kind individual who seemed to get along with everyone in the guild. The two were quick to introduce themselves and bonded almost immediately over the mutual love of books. Levy had quickly begun to drag Lucy around the guild and introduce her to her new, crazy guild mates.

She had first been introduced to Levy's team mates – the three of them forming the team 'Shadow Gear' within Fairy Tail and exclusively going on jobs together – Jet, the High-Speed magic user and Droy, the Plant magic user. The former was known for wearing a fur-lined coat and ridiculous-looking top hat wherever he went while the latter had the oddest, plant-stem looking hair-style she'd ever seen.

They also both seemed to be completely infatuated with Levy, a feeling – Lucy could tell with her experienced eye – that was definitely not mutual.

She had then been ushered over to meet two-thirds of another team.

"Eeeeh? Is _everyone_ in a team or something?" Lucy had asked with a sense of dread.

"Pretty much," Levy replied with a giggle. "Some jobs can be pretty dangerous, so the master forces us to go on them as groups. While we're not forced to stick to them, you'll find some members' magic will compliment your style more than others, and it helps to stick with them because you eventually learn to work together well in combat as well." She shrugged. "That doesn't mean anything though. No one can force who you team up with and you can do so with whomever you want."

Levy had noticed Lucy looking at her forlornly out of the corner of her eye and had smiled kindly, "While I'm already on a team, doesn't mean we can't go on jobs together Lu-chan!"

Her smile lit up the room at that and they shared a warm embrace as Levy introduced her to team 'Fortune Mayhem'.

Gray Fullbuster, Lucy had noticed with a blush, was an extremely attractive young man with an expression that looked to be set in perpetual deadpan. He was an Ice Magic user and was known to break out in uncontrollable fits of stripping that had left her shocked and baffled before Levy stopped him with merely a gesture.

"Argh man, not in front of the new girl!" Gray had lamented with an annoyed sigh, much to Lucy's surprise. Apparently his random stripping episodes were an unfortunate side-effect he had unintentionally obtained from his then-master as a child.

His giant of a friend had laughed uproariously before swivelling in his chair and greeting her as well. Elfman towered over her, heck, he towered over everyone. He was also extremely muscular and almost as appealing to her eye as his teammate was, with his easy-going and boisterous attitude and ruggedly handsome features. He was a Take Over mage, he informed her proudly and with unnecessary uses of the word 'man' as an adjective. He uses his magic to transform his body, or parts of it, into that of various powerful beasts he had encountered and bested during his life.

"That sounds a lot like Mirajane-san's magic," Lucy had commented, having remembered reading as such in a previous issue of Sorcerer Magazine.

"Everyone just calls me Mira, Lu-chan!" Fairy Tail's barmaid informed the startled girl as she seemingly materialized beside Elfman behind the bar. "And it sounds a lot like my magic because it is!"

As she eyed the two smiling, white-haired guild members before her, her eyes darted from one to the other many times before Elfman and Mira began laughing at her undisguised scrutiny.

"We're siblings!" Elfman had informed her while reaching back and pulling the smiling barmaid into a one-armed hug. "Mira-nee got all the beautiful from our mother while I got all of father's manliness!"

Mira had only slapped Elfman's side half-heartedly while those in earshot chuckled at the proclamation.

"Our other teammate is Cana Alberona," Gray had informed her before Levy dragged her to another group of members. "You'll probably meet her sometime tomorrow; she's on a date at the moment."

"A date?" Lucy had asked in confusion before checking the time. It was only seven in the evening. "It's still early, did I just miss her?"

"Oh no," Gray had corrected her with a suggestive chuckle. "Her date started last night."

The Ice-make mage's eyes widened when, instead of blushing up a storm like Levy – who was unused to such openness – Lucy only returned his grin with a knowing smirk of her own and a raised eyebrow.

"She sounds fun," Lucy told those present suggestively, despite Levy and Mirajane's scandalized look. "I can't wait to meet her."

She made sure to add a tantalizing sway to her step as Levy dragged her by the arm to the next group of people, still embarrassed and apologizing needlessly at Gray's forwardness. Gray and Elfman shared a knowing grin, bumped fists before swivelling again in their chairs and ordering another round of drinks from a frowning Mirajane.

Levy had then brought her before two veteran members of the guild. Macao Conbolt and Wakaba Mine were in their mid-thirties, both had children – the former of which was in the guild also – and both could often be seen sitting together chatting about anything and everything under the sun. Macao, in Lucy's opinion, was rather handsome with his slicked back dark blue hair, thin barely-there goatee and slim, yet muscular body. He, like Natsu, seemed to be a fire mage but he openly admitted to being nowhere near as powerful as the severe youth.

Wakaba on the other hand was openly ogling her, and unlike his ruggedly handsome friend, wasn't as gifted in the looks department. He was a chain-smoker – which apparently tied in with his magic – and had the oddest, pompadour-like hair style she had ever seen that protruded frontwards from the top of his head in a large, curly and fluffy tuft.

"So, Natsu brought you in, eh?" Macao had asked her with a knowing smirk. "I'd love to hear how you managed that. He can be a little… prickly."

As Wakaba chuckled knowingly, Lucy noticed yet didn't comment on Levy's downcast look out of the corner of her eye.

"You can say that again," Lucy had agreed with a friendly smile. "I met him in Hargeon where he quickly dealt with a scumbag dark mage that used illegal magic to lure and capture young women to sell as slaves."

Macao, Wakaba and Levy had all narrowed their eyes in anger at the thought of such people running free.

"He beat them _all_ up pretty badly though, and after seeing him in action, I begged him to bring me here so I could join," she admitted sheepishly.

Macao and Wakaba had chuckled, while Levy smiled and placed a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Obviously, he told me to get lost at first," Lucy had admitted again rather sheepishly to a chorus of eye-rolls. "But I didn't let up and eventually just latched onto his legs and told him I wouldn't let go until he agreed to bring me here."

Macao, Wakaba and even Levy had laughed uproariously at that as they tried to picture that in their minds. After Macao and Wakaba lifted their mugs to her in salute, Lucy had asked something that had been niggling at her ever since joining the fun-loving guild.

"Has he always been like that?" Lucy has asked with a worried glance in the pink haired youth's direction. Everyone she'd been introduced to so far in the guild had been nice and funny. Quirky yet also caring…

Basically, the complete opposite of Natsu, if first impressions were to be believed.

She didn't mean to say that he was a dick… but if the shoe fit…

The good mood seemed to evaporate instantly from the trio of mages at her question. Macao and Wakaba had locked eyes and seemed to hold a silent conversation while Levy merely let out a weary sigh.

"Natsu used to be really sweet and caring…" Levy began, only to be cut off by Macao who seemed to be staring far off into the distance.

"And obnoxious."

"Always looking for a fight," Wakaba interjected with a fond smile.

"Reckless."

"Carefree."

"He wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed," Macao admitted with a cheeky grin.

"No, you wouldn't have confused him with a scholar," Wakaba agreed with a matching grin.

"He also didn't know how to hold a grudge, no matter what the circumstances," Macao countered quietly, suddenly looking weary.

"He was also fiercely loyal and protective of those he considers his precious comrades," Levy finally interjected, picking up where Wakaba and Macao left off. "Those traits, however, are probably the only things that haven't changed about Natsu ever since…"

Levy had trailed off, unsure whether to continue talking about such an obviously sensitive topic.

Seeing Lucy's look of confusion, Macao sighed and took over.

"What she means to say is, Natsu changed drastically after his best-friend died on a job two years ago." His voice had dropped several octaves now, not willing to risk being overheard by the angry teen. "She was the sweetheart of the guild, and you would never see one without the other."

"They'd been inseparable ever since she joined the guild with her brother and sister almost a decade ago now," Wakaba continued quietly with a subtle glance towards Elfman and Mirajane over by the bar that Lucy quickly caught. She had had to struggle to hold in a horrified gasp at the information, but it was a close call.

"It was a simple mission they'd all gone on," Macao picked up with a troubled frown. "The three of them were to investigate and dispose of a monster that was terrorizing some villages in the countryside. Mira, being an S-class mage should have been more than enough to deal with the mission, but she'd wanted to bring her siblings along so they could get some experience…"

"The details aren't really known, or talked about rather," Wakaba continued with a helpless shrug as he leaned back on his chair. "All we know is that somehow, the Beast somehow got to Lisanna and 'poof', she'd gone."

That time, Lucy had been unable to mask her gasp. She nervously laughed off the curious looks she had garnered from mages on nearby tables before turning back to the trio with a troubled look.

"Does he blame them for her death?" she asked in a horrified whisper, though she was surprised at Macao's amused snort.

"Hardly," Macao replied as he rubbed at his tired eyes. "No, what Natsu's problem was his grief combined with the very lack of details we've presented to you in regards to _how_ it happened."

Seeing Lucy's confused look, Wakaba elaborated. "You have to understand, Lucy-san, they were inseparable. Heck, the girl introduced herself as his _wife_ all the time, and while it was done more teasingly as they got older, their relationship only got stronger…"

Lucy eyes began to sting against her will as she felt tears threaten to fall. "Were they…?"

"Hard to say," Macao had replied with a shrug. "I wouldn't have been surprised though."

"And when Mira and Elfman came back with news of her passing _without_ her body, well, needless to say, Natsu didn't take that too well," Wakaba finished with a frown.

Wait. What?

"What do you mean _without_ a body?" Lucy asked incredulously.

"Just that," Macao said with another shrug. "They came back balling their eyes out, but Master eventually got the story out of them and when he told us…"

"Natsu was less than pleased," Levy finished the thought off for Macao with a wince at her gross understatement. "Knowing what you do now about their relationship, and how Natsu is, I'm sure you can understand that he probably took it the hardest – even more so than her siblings…"

"I don't mean to sounds rude," Lucy interrupted carefully, trying her hardest not to offend her new friends. "But if someone I was in love with was proclaimed dead… it'd be incredibly hard to take without some kind of closure…"

"It's alright, we know what you mean," Macao said kindly before sighing. "But the details are only known by Mirajane, Elfman and the Master, and if anyone knew exactly what happened, it would be them."

"Natsu has never been one to back down, however, and when he demanded to see her body… things got a little rough between him and Mira," Wakaba continued quietly.

Her eyes widened in astonishment, Lucy quickly looked over the beautiful, smiling Mira serving a couple of mages some beer and couldn't mentally picture her fighting _anyone_, let alone being angry enough to warrant such actions.

"Mira used to be quite the hellion," Macao informed the surprised girl with an amused smirk. "Temperamental, foul-mouthed, abrasive, bullying and feared by all."

Lucy struggled to picture Mira _ever_ being like that while she glanced at the beautifully smiling woman operating the bar incredulously.

"She was also freakishly powerful, more so than Natsu was at the time by far, so their brawl was quick and brutal," Wakaba said with a frown.

"It didn't help that Mira was as grief-stricken and angry as Natsu was either," Levy butt in quietly.

"After getting his ass handed to him, Natsu just dragged himself out of the guild with his head down, I'll never forget it," he said, almost tearing up at the memory. "When he got to the door, he asked everyone there if we were also going to abandon our precious comrade and give up on Lisanna."

"No one said anything," Wakaba said helplessly as he, too, recalled the incident. "We were all too shocked by the news, and then by Natsu's reaction. It was so out of character that we were genuinely shocked speechless."

"And then he left," Levy said quietly as she subtly wiped away the few tears that escaped her eyes.

"He didn't scream, he didn't shout, he didn't rage, heck, he didn't even glare," Macao said with a grimace. "He just looked at us with the coldest eyes I'd ever seen on him and called us all traitors."

"He disappeared after that," Levy continued quietly. "We didn't see him for months."

"Then the next time we do see him, he looked horrible. More powerful, sure, but he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks," Wakaba reminisced with a frown. "He demanded to be allowed to attempt the S-class trials, and, much to our surprise, Master Makarov agreed."

"You have to understand," Levy interjected, seeing the confusion on Lucy's face, "The S-class trials are dangerous, and Master doesn't let just anyone attempt them. He has to think you're ready otherwise you can be seriously injured – it's a test to see if you're ready for the harder jobs in the world, after all…"

Needless to say, he blitzed them and became the youngest S-class mage in Fairy Tail's history," Macao said with a proud smile. "Ever since then, Natsu has the Master search for leads on any and all suspicious kidnappings and disappearances. He's never home for more than a week anymore before he's back on the road again on another job."

"He barely speak to anyone and outright ignores Mira whenever she tries to speak to him," Levy said quietly as the four of them all looked over to a smiling Mirajane who was obliviously cleaning beer mugs.

"That's so sad," Lucy said with a worried frown as she, once again, looked over to the hunched over Natsu speaking quietly with the Guild Master while a small, blue car flew around their heads deliriously with a piece of fish clutched in its paws as it sang a song.

Wait. What?

"And that would be Happy," Macao said with a hearty chuckle, pleased to move on from such depressing conversations. "Natsu found him when he was still an egg and they've been together ever since."

"They're also normally inseparable," Wakaba said with a shrug before taking a long drag on his cigarette. "But given the danger of some of the jobs Natsu finds himself with, he can't bring Happy with him anymore for fear of him getting hurt."

"He's so cute," Lucy said as she adored the flying, talking cat from afar.

Wakaba, Macao and Levy shared a secret smile but refused to comment on her observation and allowed her to find out for herself.

It would be far funnier that way.

After promising to have a drink with Macao and Wakaba some other time, Levy had then dragged her to another member of Fairy Tail – this one being more up Lucy's alley than Levy could have ever realised.

He was surrounded by a group of fawning female admirers that he instantly ditched when he saw Levy and Lucy arrive. He had short, spikey orange hair, handsome, delicate features and black eyes covered with a pair of azure-tinted sunglasses. He was of a slim, athletic build and wore a conservative amount of jewellery – a stud and two rings in his left ear, a necklace of what looked to be an unknown animal's tooth, a gold and ruby studded bracelet and a ring that he wore on his left index finger.

He wore an orange tee covered with a thin, olive-green parker jacket that had a fur-lined hood and a pair of black cargo pants.

As Lucy stared with a neutral expression at the approaching handsome, young man the deep 'thunking' sound his boots made whenever they came in contact with the worn, wooden floor of the guild hall seemed to resonate with her heart beat.

"Loke," Levy had introduced with a beaming smile. "Come meet our newest member!"

Almost immediately, and despite Levy's skwark of protest, Loke invaded Lucy's personal space and tucked a strand of silky blonde hair behind her ear affectionately. After his initial, cursory inspection of her mature figure, his eyes had never left her own for the duration of their meeting.

While most women would be highly offended at a man for so blatantly checking them out, Lucy wasn't like most women.

She could hardly begrudge a man for ogling what she so blatantly put out to be _ogled_.

"And what did the gods deem fit as a title for the wonderful piece of art that I see before me?" the young man whom Lucy already knew to be Loke of Fairy Tail asked in a smooth, suave tone. Of course she knew Loke, infamous recurring winner of Sorcerer Magazine's bachelor of the year award and infamous Lady Killer.

Oh, less she forgets to mention, the star of many of Lucy's fantasies on nights she hadn't a man warming her bed.

"Lucy," she replied with a confident smirk and a salacious wink as Loke took her right hand in his and placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles. Lucy almost laughed at the vicious glares she was receiving from the group of girls who had previously been the sole recipients of Loke's affections.

"It's a pleasure to meet… you," he trailed off as his eyes widened when he spotted the set of keys hanging from the belt hanging loosely around her waist. "You're a Celestial Spirit Mage?"

The yelp startled her almost as much as the high-pitch tone he'd used when asking the question did.

"I beg your pardon?" Lucy asked with wide eyes as Loke suddenly leapt away from her as if she were diseased.

"You're a Celestial Spirit Mage!" He cried, pointing an accusing finger at her as he backed away slowly.

"Yes?" Lucy answered, drawing out the word and using a questioning tone, not quite sure what the problem was.

"Ah! Get her away from me!"

As Loke dived back into the clutches of his little harem, using the smirking girls as a shield against her, Lucy couldn't help being confused.

What. The. Hell?

Boys _never_ turned her down. Boys _especially_ didn't run from her.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go! In her fantasies, when she met Loke for real, they would flirt a little, she'd get to know him while discreetly adjusting her top and hiking up her skirt to give him a better view of her prodigious chest puppies and maybe even the barest peek at the bottom of her scantily clad rear. He, like many before him, would then be unable to control himself and begin to ravish her right there with the evening culminating with a several day romp at the closest Inn they could find where Lucy would show him her charms…

Instead, not only had he rejected her, but he seemed to be _repulsed_ by her.

Her head hanging in defeat, Levy had led her away to meet the rest of the guild and hopefully lift the inconsolable girl's spirits.

It had worked, and after being introduced to everyone currently in the Guild Hall, Lucy was once again seated at a table with Levy as the two chatted away and continued to get to know one another more intimately. While being seventeen – almost eighteen – years old, Lucy had rarely had anyone in her life that she could honestly call a friend, such was her sheltered childhood. Thus, it came as a massive surprise to her at how easily she could open up to Levy as the duo shared between them their thoughts, dreams, and just chatted about anything that popped into their minds.

"So you want to be a novelist?" Levy queried with a childlike glee. "That sounds wonderful! You'll let me proof-read whatever you write, won't you?"

Lucy had the good graces to flush in embarrassment as she tried to find a way to let the girl what kind of _novelist_ she wanted to be.

"Err, sure, that'd be great, but you don't even know what kind of books want to write," Lucy began as Levy shook her head emphatically and grabbed the amused Celestial Spirit mage's hands.

"It doesn't matter!"

"Even if it's erotica?" Lucy asked with a raised brow and a cheeky smile.

"Even if it's – _eeeeeeh?_" Levy exclaimed before covering her mouth in embarrassment as her unexpected outburst garnered more attention than both girls were comfortable with.

Making sure that everyone was once again minding their own business, Lucy giggled at Levy's flushed face.

"You're shy, that's so adorable," Lucy crooned as she pinched the girl's cheeks and hugged her close to her chest.

"I don't know much about such things," Levy mumbled into her new friend's chest as the girls separated, allowing the blue-haired mage to see Lucy's smile.

"That's fine, that also doesn't mean you can't proof-read my work either," Lucy explained with a shrug. "I use my _experiences_ as inspiration to write more chapters and more love scenes between the heroine and the many cute boys she meets on her journeys. It's a story about love, loss, heartache and coming of age!"

Seeing how worked up Lucy was getting about the plot of her first novel, Levy giggled. "And smut?"

"And smut," Lucy agreed with a matching giggle.

"So, from your own experiences, huh?" Levy asked shyly. "You'll probably get along with Cana, I suppose. She's, um, very _experienced_ as well."

Lucy grinned but with little else to add to the conversation chose to let it end there. The two of them took sips from their beverages before Levy's eyes widened.

"Oh, I don't think I've told you what magic _I_ use yet!" Levy exclaimed, horribly embarrassed by the fact. Lucy looked on in interest as Levy looked for something to demonstrate on. Out of the corner of their eyes they spotted Gray talking to a girl Lucy didn't quite remember the name of. All of a sudden, he began divesting himself of clothing as he spoke – all subconsciously, she'd been assured – while the girl looked on with increasing levels of incredulity.

Finding a target, Levy pointed at the space above Gray's head and, much to Lucy's shock, the _word_ 'Water' appeared in big, blocky blue letters above the unsuspecting young man's head. The words themselves turned into buckets of _actual_ water and dousing the surprised teen.

"Gray," Levy called out to the sputtering teen as the girl he'd been chatting up walked away. "You're clothes!"

"Aww man, not again!" He exclaimed in annoyance as he gathered the shirt and coat he'd haphazardly tossed away without realising.

"It's called Solid Script magic," Levy informed Lucy proudly. "It allows me to generate words like that in the air that can have a variety of effects! I'm only limited by my imagination!"

Lucy's was suitably impressed by her new friend's ability, and told her as such.

"That's amazing! It really suits you," Lucy said with a cheerful smile.

Seeing Levy's look of expectation, Lucy realised that she, too, wanted a demonstration of her own magic. Thinking on it, Lucy suddenly realised that she had yet to summon her most recent acquisition.

Unclipping the silver key from her belt, she showed it to Levy before pointing it upwards and intoning the incantation she had been taught by her late mother.

"Open, Gate of the Canis Minor!" They key was engulfed in a bright, white light that drew the attention of every mage in the Guild Hall.

Those who had never seen a Celestial Spirit in action before crowded around their table to get a closer look but were forced to shield their eyes as the light emanating from the key reached its blinding crescendo.

"Nikora!" Lucy called as the name of the Celestial Spirit appeared in her mind's eye as a result of using its key.

The blinding light faded to reveal, much to the shock of everyone present, a young boy who looked to be no older than six years-old. He looked nothing like what everyone was expecting a Celestial Spirit to be, if anything, he looked downright ordinary. Nikora had scraggly black hair with a single tuft of white flicked up at the back, large, round eyes and an adorable smile. He wore a simple white tee-shirt with a picture of a puppy on the front and a pair of worn cargo shorts. He was also bare footed and appeared to be sniffing the air as he looked around the gathered Mages of Fairy Tail with interest.

"You!" Nikora suddenly exclaimed as he pointed to the smiling Lucy triumphantly. "You're the one who summoned me!"

Lucy continued to smile, "I am. Did you realise that based on my scent alone?"

"Nope!" The young boy answered enthusiastically before pointing to the key in her hand. "I saw my key and thought, 'Duh, she must be the one who summoned me!'"

As the assembled mages chuckled at Lucy being outsmarted by a little boy, she sighed before clipping the key back to her belt.

"I just wanted to iron out the details of our contract," Lucy informed the young boy as Levy and everyone else who remained to watch the show looked on in interest. "How often will you allow me to summon you?"

The boy seemed to be deep in thought for several moments as Lucy waited patiently for a response. Nikora seemed to be scrutinizing her carefully before his eyes landed on her breasts, barely being contained by her tight tank-top. His grin became positively creepy – perverted, definitely, but creepy on such a young child.

"You can summon me whenever you want big boobie-chan! You have to promise to give me cuddles though." The boy proclaimed imperiously as Lucy grinned at him and rubbed his head affectionately, ignoring the comment about her breasts.

"It's a deal," Lucy agreed with a kind smile as they shook on it to seal the contract. Nikora was then enveloped in a puff of smoke as Lucy retracted her hand to wait for it to clear. When it did, Levy, and many of those still watching on, gasped when, instead of the young boy they had expected to see, they were greeted with an adorable little Golden Retriever puppy that barely reached Lucy's knee.

The puppy would have looked like any other ordinary dog were it not for the red gem embedded in his forehead and his tail splitting into two towards its tip. The puppy also wore a black and tartan patterned doggy coat and had a studded collar with a tag that resembled the symbol on Nikora's key.

"Aww, he's so cute!" Levy squealed as Nikora leapt right into Lucy's lap and stood on its high legs so he could paw her breasts. Giggling at the puppy's antics, she hugged him close to her chest with her left hand while the right rendered Nikora practically immobile as she scratched him behind the ears.

"You're a good boy, aren't you?" Lucy praised the puppy as its tongue hung out and multi-tipped tail wagged in joy.

"A little to the left," Nikora implored to the surprise of some of the mages present, the rest merely chuckled in amusement.

As those done snooping began to filter away, Levy scooted closer to Lucy and joined in on petting the ecstatic puppy.

"All Celestial Spirits have a human and a bestial form," Lucy informed her new friend before giggling as Nikora's hind leg began to twitch involuntarily as Lucy found a particular spot the puppy seemingly adored. "With Nikora being such a cute little puppy, it's not really much of an issue, but some of the more powerful Spirits are _really _big and scary."

"That's amazing Lu-chan!" Levy praised with a kind smile as the two girls continued to play with the excitable pup.

While Fairy Tail's newest member was busy making new friends, Natsu was speaking with the Guild Master about his most recent job and its outcome.

"Any news?" Makarov asked in a grave tone that showed none of the exuberance or joy he had displayed earlier when bringing Lucy into the guild.

Instead of answering, Natsu only frowned before taking a sup of his soda drink. Happy was blissfully ignorant of the severity of their conversation, so engrossed was he in devouring the fish Natsu had gifted him.

"Nothing at all?" Makarov asked as he sighed in defeat. "I thought for sure something would eventuate from this one."

"Young women being kidnapped in the dead of night and disappearing in bright flashes of light, you had every reason to suspect a connection," Natsu replied in a gruff tone before taking another sip of his drink. "The way they disappeared matched what the Strauss' told us almost to the letter. It was what led to their disappearances that didn't."

They spoke in soft tones so as to not be overheard, but anyone with half a brain could tell they were not to be disturbed just by looking at the serious looks on their faces. Makarov sat on the bar in front of Natsu and nursed a quickly warming beer while pink-haired teen's cheek rested on the back of his hand, a permanent scowl marring his features.

"What happened?" Makarov asked gently, knowing how aggravated Natsu became whenever a lead turned up fruitless.

Natsu sighed wearily but began to explain. "It's not pretty," he warned and seeing Makarov not backing down he shrugged and launched into his tale. "The town have had problems with mysterious disappearances for over a decade, and the job has been up since the very first one. Turns out anybody who tried to take the job back then simply never came back but no one looked too heavily into it because when their bodies were discovered, it looked like they'd been mauled by beasts in the forests surrounding the town."

"Were they?" Makarov prompted as he motioned to Mira to get him another beer.

"It was a reasonable enough assumption," Natsu said with a shrug. "The forests surrounding the town are known to be dangerous and house a particularly vicious herd of Manticore."

"You're right," Makarov answered as Mira took Makarov's old mug and replaced it with a fresh one. She looked like she wanted to say something to Natsu but lost the nerve when he refused to even acknowledge her presence. "That does sound reasonable, are you telling me it wasn't?"

"Too many mages of somewhat credible renown had bumbled into the Manticore's nesting grounds for it to be believable," Natsu shrugged. "Joya may not be known for its powerful mages like Fiore is, but they're not incompetent. Anyone with half a brain could see the signs and should have stayed away from them, especially since Manticore aren't particularly known for kidnapping."

Makarov hid his amused smirk by taking a sip of his beer, "Indeed."

"Over a whole decade though, for the kidnappings to only occur to women was more than a little suspicious, and wondering around until I happened upon a few dozen Manticore out for my blood seemed like a stupid idea." Natsu shrugged. "I looked into the disappearances more and found a few other patterns. They would happen only once every six months, almost to the day, and it would always be a woman who could go a few days without being noticed missing – soldiers, hunters, working girls, whatever."

"Smart thinking," Makarov praised, honestly impressed with Natsu's rational thinking instead of how he used to do things – basically blowing shit up until the problem sorted itself out.

Then again, this wasn't the same Natsu they were talking about. That Natsu died over two years ago.

Natsu once again shrugged and continued with his tale. "It's something anything half-decent investigator would have picked up on if the town had enough funds to afford one."

"You have to pay the authorities to do their job?" Makarov asked, genuinely surprised.

"Apparently Joya is a pretty corrupt country filled with crime. The good cops are swamped in the capitol city dealing with the crooks there and the bad ones sit on their fat asses and steal from the people they're sworn to protect. The Mage Guilds are all pretty much corrupt as well, little better than Dark Guilds if you ask me. Put all that together and it's no wonder they've been advertising outside the country for so many years to get the job done."

Makarov frowned, but otherwise didn't respond.

"I got little help from the Mayor though," Natsu replied with a frown. "When I told him what I found he practically threw me out of his office and told me to find and kill whatever was responsible."

Makarov's eyebrows shot up and Natsu sighed wearily. "His thirteen year old daughter had disappeared over five years ago and he apparently hasn't been right ever since."

"So what did you do?" Makarov asked in confusion, having little idea what he, himself, would have done in such a situation.

"After they mayor kicked me out I realised that some things just didn't add up," he scowled as if remembering something truly infuriating before continuing. "The job request said that the disappearing girls would always be spirited away in a flash of light, but if that's true, why didn't the records match that claim?"

Makarov's eyes widened in realisation, "Brilliant!" he praised. "The records said that each girl that went missing wasn't even noticed as such until days later, like you said."

Natsu didn't see the need to correct him and took another sip of his drink.

"But if that's the case, then…"

"The Mayor had to be in on it? Yeup," Natsu confirmed with another weary sigh. "I didn't tell everyone my findings and after that, made a show of going into the forest in the morning before doubling back and tailing the Mayor wherever he went. I hit the jackpot three days later the Mayor's personal guard kidnapped a Potions Mistress out of town while she was collecting ingredients."

"Nobody noticed?" Makarov asked with a frown.

"She lived and ran her shop alone. She was a widower and had few friends. She was also collecting the ingredients at the crack of dawn," he shrugged. "If I hadn't been tailing them, I wouldn't have noticed her missing either."

"I guess that wasn't the end of it then?" Makarov asked with a troubled frown.

"Not even close," Natsu replied gruffly. "They took her to a hidden room in the Mayor's manor and drew up a magic seal on the ground. I had no idea what it was supposed to do, but when they placed her in the middle of the circle and the runes – and the girl – started to shine, I figured that wasn't good."

"How did you sneak into the hidden room without anyone seeing you," Makarov asked in confusion, knowing that Natsu's magic was anything but subtle. He may have bought being able to hide in the shadows or out of sight while outdoors, but in enclosed spaces?

"I took the place of one of the Mayor's bodyguards. The stupid one that never talked," Natsu replied with a grin as Makarov snorted into his beverage. "Either way, I kicked her out of the circle and took her place before anyone noticed what was going on -,"

Seeing the thunderous expression on Makarov's face, he raised a challenging brow and asked mockingly, "If you have a problem with how I do things, you shouldn't have made me an S-rank mage."

Makarov forced his anger in check, not wanting to alert anyone in the guild to his displeasure. "You said you had no idea what the Runic Circle was designed to do! For all you know it could have been a sacrificial spell!"

He didn't yell, exactly, but his harsh tone belied such intensity that Natsu knew he wanted nothing more than to do just that.

"Maybe," Natsu shrugged. "Or it could have sent me right to where Lisanna was."

"How do you think Lisanna would feel if you'd _died_?" Makarov shot back furiously.

"I don't know," Natsu replied with his face suddenly stony. "I'll ask her when I find her."

Forcibly calming himself after his outburst, caring very much for the infuriating boy in front of him despite the brat's allusions to thinking otherwise, he motioned for Natsu to continue.

"Well, it was a transportation spell, but it didn't send me very far," Natsu said with a careless shrug. "Three hundred feet down, if I had to guess."

"Underground?" Makarov asked, suddenly confused. "I don't understand."

"Maybe you will when I tell you who made up my welcoming party?" Natsu shot back with a feral grin. "Dozens of Darvoul armed to the teeth and their big, muscly, deformed commander."

"D-Darvoul?" Makarov shrieked incredulously, luckily, a commotion elsewhere in the guild drowned out most of his shout to all but Happy.

"What's a Darvoul?" Happy asked innocently as he suckled on another piece of fish meat.

"Big, ugly, humanoid monsters with melting, rotting flesh and hard carapaces covering their heads, chests and legs," Makarov informed the cat robotically. Darvoul were much more than that. Centuries ago the whole of Earthland was nearly wiped out due to a Darvoul plague that swept across the nations and almost wiped out all life were it not for the brave knights and armies of the Pergrande Kingdom. They were thought to be extinct, that is, until now.

Calming down, he frowned when he realised something now that rational thought returned to him. "How do _you_ know about Darvoul? You've never read a book in your life!"

Not bothering to deny the accusation, he only shrugged. "The foot soldiers are pretty stupid, but the commander was more than willing to boast of his species' return to power."

"Their _what_?" Makarov hissed furiously as he grabbed Happy by the tail and flung the excitable cat across the guild and right into an unsuspecting Gray's back, forcing the Mage to spill his beer all over his shirt.

"Alright, who did that?" Gray hollered, not seeing the dazed happy passed out at his feet. Seeing that no one was owning up it, Gray threw a punch at the nearest, guilty-looking mage.

Jet never knew what hit him.

Seeing his buddy get sucker-punched for no reason, Droy was quick to jump on Gray's back and attempt a sleeper hold while Jet regained his footing and began laying into Gray's side with a series of punches.

"Two on one? How unmanly!" Elfman roared as he picked up both Jet and Droy by the scruff of their necks and threw them right into another group of mages.

From that point, it was on.

Ignoring the brawl that had begun behind them, Makarov continued to stare at Natsu intently until the Pink-haired teen sighed and relented. "Relax old man, their armour may be tough, but it's not exactly fire-resistant."

"You killed them all?" Makarov asked in a shocked tone. From what he'd read about Darvoul, a single ambushing party had been more than enough to take out several companies of seasoned soldiers.

"It was hardly a fair fight," Natsu replied with a cocky smirk. "We were in enclosed spaces and I had no qualms about roasting them."

"Tell me everything," Makarov demanded with a serious, no-nonsense tone.

"Not much more to tell, to be honest," Natsu shrugged. "I spent the next few days exploring the underground tunnels. I probably would have gotten lost if I didn't have my good sense of smell. Eventually, I found their leader. Big, ugly brain _thing_ with tentacles pumping _something_ into the ground and surrounded by thousands and thousands of eggs."

Makarov paled at that. That sounded like no Darvoul he'd ever heard of. Maybe something that was using the Darvoul for its own gain? Or maybe the true source of the original Darvoul Plague all those centuries ago.

"It had no mouth, and spoke right into my mind. It went on and on with the usual bad guy too-smart-for-you monologue," Natsu frowned. "We humans are inferior, he will have his revenge, we will be crushed under their numbers, blah, blah, blah. Tell me, why is it that the bad guy always thinks they're some kind of God?"

Makarov tried hard to not let anything of his inner turmoil show. "What happened next?"

"Naturally, when I killed the Darvoul Commanders that were guarding it, it freaked out and summoned the rest of his little army to help defend it."

"I'm assuming you dealt with them," Makarov stated rhetorically.

"It really was unfair," Natsu said with a vicious grin. "In a tunnel, there's not many places from one to hide from my flames."

Makarov mirrored his smirk, "Indeed."

"When it looked like no more were coming, Brain-boy started spilling its guts and offering me treasures in the hopes that I wouldn't kill it. Unfortunately, I couldn't let that happen, especially when I realised what had happened to all those girls they'd kidnapped."

"Oh?"

Natsu grimaced and took another swig of his drink. "Apparently the mayor has been dead ever since the first kidnapping and was being controlled by Brain-boy. It needed the women to… breed more Darvoul."

Makarov paled at the revelation while Natsu took a calming breath before continuing. "Apparently it used whatever gunk its tentacles pumped to corrupt and turn the kidnapped women into Darvoul brood-mothers. The process took weeks and as soon as they turned, they continuously pumped out eggs that would spawn more and more Darvoul."

"And this has been going on for more than a decade?" Makarov asked with a worried frown. "How have we not heard of them until now?"

"It said because most of the Darvoul were being ordered to expand their tunnels towards Pergrande Kingdom. Revenge and all that, remember?"

They sat in silence for several moments, only the sounds of the vicious brawl Makarov was more than eager to ignore for the moment permeating the hall as he pondered Natsu's words.

"I take it you killed this… Demon?" Makarov asked with a scowl.

"Heh, it tried to get my while it thought I was distracted with its tale. I ripped the tentacle off from the stem and beat it to death with it, then I burned it to ash and then I pissed on its ashes."

"Good work," Makarov nodded in approval and the two were silent for several seconds. "Did you really piss on its ashes?"

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it," Natsu replied with a grin that earned a vicious chuckle from the Guild Leader. "What of the women?"

Here, Natsu flinched and put his mug down once again.

"I put them out of their misery," he answered without emotion in his voice as he stared at his reflection in his drink.

Makarov knew it must have been horrible for Natsu to resort to such measures. Were he the little brat he knew before the incident with Lisanna he would have berated him for such a callous action. This young man, however, had matured greatly since then into a reliable, powerful, world-wise warrior. For Natsu to think putting those women out of their misery to be the only option…

Makarov shuddered. He didn't even want to think what horrors Natsu had been forced to witness in those tunnels.

"You might want to let Pergrande know about the tunnels the Darvoul were digging," Natsu said suddenly, shocking Makarov out of his reverie. "The Brain-dude might have been creating and controlling the Darvoul, but they can still live and function without it. A few tried to attack me while I was dealing with the Brood-mothers."

"Anything else?" Makarov asked, not missing how Natsu referred to the enslaved women as Brood-mothers, rather than humans.

"Well, the monetary reward was obviously not an option," Natsu said with a sigh. There's twenty million jewels down the toilet. "As soon as brain-dude died, the puppet mayor died as well, and while I got rid of the problem, without their mayor and with the news that the kidnapped girls were not coming back, the townspeople didn't think my work a success."

Makarov's fists tightened at that news. After all the trouble Natsu had to go through, completing his _fourth_ ten-year job at such a young age, how _dare_ they begrudge him his pay-check?

"The Mayor's wife thanked me though, for bringing them closure," Natsu said with a sigh. He reached into his pocket and pulled out, much to Makarov's shock, a golden Celestial Spirit Key. "She said this had been in her family for generations but was just collecting dust. She offered it up as payment and I took it. I didn't do the job for the money anyways."

"We can at least be thankful that this job _was_ a dead end," Makarov said while taking the key and skipping into his pocket. "Is there any reason why you didn't gift the key to the newest member of our family?"

"Not mine to gift," Natsu said with a careless shrug. "If you want to give it to Luigi, be my guest."

"Her name is Lucy," Makarov said with a frown marring his elderly features.

"Sure, whatever," Natsu mumbled in reply as his face disappeared behind his mug.

Makarov saw out of the corner of his eye that the brawl was escalating further than he would allow when Gray spread his legs apart and put his right fist in the palm of his left hand – his basic stance for his Ice-Make magic.

Trembling in fury, Makarov's tiny body quickly grew in high and width until he stood so high that he had to hunch over less he blow a hole right through the ceiling.

"**Knock it off you damn brats!"** his deep, menacing voice boomed over the cacophony caused by the free-for-all brawl, causing each participant to freeze in abject terror. Every mage involved quickly scattered to each corner of the guild to put as much distance between them and their enraged master as possible.

The display of Makarov's feared Titan magic enough to halt the brawl in its tracks, he returned to Natsu and sat before him once again on the bar and peered into his face for several, long moments. Natsu pretended not to notice but eventually relented when he realised the staring wasn't about to stop.

"What?" he snapped, hoping after his long tale he would just be left in peace.

"You're exhausted," Makarov replied as simply as if he were commenting on the weather. "When was the last time you took a break?"

"After my last job."

"Let me rephrase," Makarov replied, fighting to keep his voice calm despite the annoying brat before him doing everything in his power to make his efforts moot. "When was the last time you took a day off just to relax?"

Natsu didn't answer for a long moment, preferring to take another sip of his drink instead. When it became clear that Makarov was expecting an answer, he sighed. "Not since Lisanna disappeared."

Makarov let loose a weary sigh as he palmed his weathered, wrinkly face, feeling every bit as old in his soul as he looked in body.

"Take the day off Natsu. Come see me tomorrow night and I'll promise I'll have another lead for you by then."

"You have a lead now?" Natsu exclaimed as he made to get up, but Makarov used his Titan magic to enlarge his arm well beyond the norm and force him back into his seat.

"Sit. Down," Makarov ordered. "You're of use to no one, especially Lisanna, if you pass out from exhaustion!"

"For all we know, Lisanna could be in pain! She could be scared and alone! She might not even remember her own name!"

"She could also be happy," Makarov countered. "She could have moved on. She could also have passed away. Two years is a long time."

"Are you willing to risk that?" Natsu asked in a tone of voice that was so deadly calm that it sent chills down Makarov's spine.

"You know I wouldn't be, otherwise I wouldn't enable you as much as I do," Makarov shot back between gritted teeth. "But you're destroying yourself, and I can't see Lisanna before me killing herself. I see YOU! Don't ask a father to watch his children kill themselves, because I WILL NOT!"

"Then don't watch," Natsu shrugged. "Because as long as I don't know about Lisanna's wellbeing, I _can't_ sleep, I _can't _rest," his shoulders trembled but he quickly put a clamp on his emotions. "Every time I close my eyes I see her smiling face as we_ promised_ each other that I'd find her if she ever got lost again. Whenever I sleep I have nightmares of her being _tortured_! Don't _tell_ me what you _think_ I need old man, because the only thing I _want_ is to make sure Lisanna is safe and happy. It's the only thing I _need_."

The two locked eyed, neither refusing to back down.

"What happens when you find Lisanna? Will you reconnect with those who miss you? Will you come back to those who love you?"

"Sure," Natsu replied in a gruff tone. "Whatever, as long as Lisanna is okay."

"If you continue to spurn your family, they _will_ give up on you Natsu," Makarov warned the hard-headed teen. "You've changed. Who's to say that Lisanna will even accept the man you've become once you've found her?"

For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Makarov was startled that Natsu actually smiled. He was even more startled when he realised how alien the expression now looked on his perpetually scowling features.

"As long as Lisanna's safe and happy, _I don't care_."

Any further attempts at conversation fell on deaf ears as Makarov left the stupid brat to his own devices while he penned a letter to the council mentioning the possible Darvoul crisis.

* * *

It had been almost an hour since the brawl had been forcibly ended by an enraged Makarov and Lucy finally felt comfortable again in the joyous atmosphere of the guild.

Nikora had been more than happy to hang around and be fawned over by two cute girls and Levy had been more than happy to indulge the pup while the two talked about Lucy's budding novel – the blonde girl having to keep the conversation as G-rated as possible to avoid Levy becoming uncomfortable.

"_She's here!_"

The exclamation came as such a shock to the Celestial Spirit Mage that Lucy actually shrieked in fright.

"What are you talking about?" Gray asked sourly as he looked over his shoulder at the panic-stricken Loke.

"Erza! She's back!"

Lucy felt a surge of excitement at being able to meet Fairy Tail's strongest female mage, however, it quickly became apparent that she was one of the very few to feel as such.

"What's going on?" A perplexed Lucy asked a grinning Levy as the petite girl laughed at their guild mates' antics. At the announcement the guild exploded into action as conversations ended, rubbish was disposed of and dirt was cleaned.

"You'll see," Levy replied with a teasing smile as the large double doors of the guild hall burst open revealing the domineering yet beautiful figure of the legendary Titania Erza.

Before she could even get a word in, Loke dropped to one knee before her and took her hand in his.

"My lady Erza! These halls always seem so dark and gloomy without your beautiful radiance to illuminate them!"

Lucy became painfully aware of the deafening silence as everyone in the guild collectively waited with bated breath for her response. Loke sat frozen, kneeling on one knee as he held Erza's hand in his own. A nervous sweat broke out on his brow as she continued to stare at him with an inscrutable visage.

When she only raised an eyebrow in question, Loke let go of her hand as if it were on fire as he backed away slowly and chuckled nervously.

"S-sorry for being so forward Erza-sama, I got ahead of my yeeeeeah!"

Lucy's hands flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp when, instead of verbally replying to Loke's shameless flirting, she closed her eyes in annoyance and launched a gauntlet covered fist sideways and right into the unsuspecting flirt's face.

"You already have a girlfriend Loke, stop flirting," Erza commanded in a strict tone.

Levy only giggled at her antics while Lucy looked on in open-mouthed shock as Loke was sent careening into the far wall of the guild where he impacted heavily against the solid stone structure.

"A-Abuse!" Loke cried weakly, but Erza ignored him and moved on to her next target.

"Wakaba!" She called out to the startled older man. "Stop littering the floor with your disgusting cigarette butts! Macao! Stop leaning back on your chair, you could hurt yourself!"

Both men were quick to remedy their errors as Lucy continued to watch on in shock.

"Erza is the guild's disciplinarian," Levy finally explained with another giggle. "If you don't do anything to incur her wrath, you should be fine."

"Gray! Stop stripping!" She ordered as the ice-magic user groaned and moved to collect his clothes. Elfman only laughed at his friend's predicament but was suitably silenced by the red-haired demoness.

"Elfman! Don't encourage him! Nab! Stop looking at the job board all day and pick one already!" The tall, bearded man with a skull necklace looked suitably chastised as Erza pointed to a skinny man wearing a dark, body-suit dancing by himself on top of one of the tables. "Vijeeter, take your dancing outside, you're distracting people and you can hurt yourself!"

As Lucy watched Erza systematically chastise half of the guild for something or other, she felt a growing sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach when the powerful mage in question made her way over to their table.

"Levy, I trust you have been well?" Erza asked in a no-nonsense tone even though it appeared to be a simple, friendly greeting.

"Just fine Erza," Levy replied with a cheerful smile. She opened her mouth, ready to introduce her to Lucy but was foiled by Erza.

"Who are you?" Erza pointed at Lucy and asked bluntly. "I don't believe we've met."

"E-excuse me," Lucy stood up and bowed, hoping to avoid the powerful mage's wrath. "My name's Lucy, I just joined the guild today."

The frown on Erza's face morphed into a small, beautiful smile as she pat Lucy on the head – hard enough to cause her to wince in pain, but she didn't dare voice her discomfort.

"Welcome to the guild, Lucy-san!" Erza greeted heartily before her strict demeanour quickly resurfaced. "No pets allowed in the guild hall though! Leave him outside!"

"U-um," Lucy put her hand up to clear up Nikora's presence and hoping to whatever Gods existed that she wouldn't offend one of her idols. "Nikora isn't a pet, he's a Celestial Spirit. I'm a Celestial Spirit Mage."

Erza's eyes widened briefly before she suddenly dropped into a bow before Nikora, her forehead touching the wooden floor. "I apologize if I offended you Nikora-dono!" she exclaimed in an oddly worried, yet somehow still severe tone. "Please strike me for this offence!"

"You're weird," Nikora bluntly commented as leapt back and curled up on Lucy's lap.

"If you shall not strike me as punishment, allow me to make amends!" She disappeared in an impressive display of speed, reappearing a moment later with a woozy Happy clutched in her hands. "Here, Happy. You have a new friend. Welcome to the guild Lucy-san!"

With the cat unceremoniously dropped on Lucy's lap, totally unconscious, Erza moved on to report to Master Makarov.

Mirajane had been watching the entire time. Since the beginning of his conversation with the Master, all the way through, even up until now where he didn't even acknowledge Erza's arrival with so much as a backwards glance.

Lisanna's death had hurt, more than she could have ever possible imagined. That hurt had only been compounded by not only losing her precious sister, but losing someone she considered to be as important as a precious little brother also.

Ever since that horrible fight all those years ago where she had trounced him and said to him cruel things she wished with all her soul she could take back, they hadn't even spoken a word to each other.

Well, that wasn't true.

She had tried plenty of times to speak to him, to apologise for something she had said without thinking and will regret until the day she died.

She had only gotten silence as a response.

He didn't even _look_ at her. She could take his anger, his fury, even his resentment. Natsu ignoring her completely felt like a rusty dagger planted in her heart that twisted ever so slowly every day she allowed such a travesty to continue.

She had already lost a sister.

She refused to also lose her precious little brother forever.

It was then that she made her decision. It took three tries with Mira pretending to find something else to do at the other end of the bar, but eventually she mustered up the courage to approach Natsu at the far end of the bar, sitting alone.

Always alone.

If only he realised he didn't have to deal with his grief by himself, she _knew_ he'd feel better and they could move on with their lives.

Did she expect him to forget Lisanna? NEVER! For as dense as the boy was – _used to be –_ Mira _knew_ he'd loved Lisanna, and not in a platonic way.

She knew.

She knew because Lisanna felt the same, and the two of them had spent many a night up late talking about how they would eventually get together. At the time she'd found the talks annoying and irritating. Marriage, children, a house on the outskirts of Magnolia… she remembered being revolted by such topics of conversations.

She wasn't the same woman anymore.

Now, she lay awake every night _wishing_ Lisanna would walk through the front door and they could together plan her wedding with Natsu until the early hours of the morning, if she wanted!

"H-how did your last job go Natsu?" There. She went for it. She sounded weak, and pathetic, and so helplessly hopeful that she winced, but she didn't let his silence deter her.

"That's your third ten-year job in a row, right?" She asked, hoping the little braggart she had once known was still there somewhere, deep down. This was a different Natsu ever. Darker. Powerful. _Meaner_. If only he knew how much his silence _hurt_.

"That's pretty impressive, we're all _very _proud of you, you know?" Mira tried, desperately clawing at her mind to come up with _something_, _anything_ to get some kind of response from him. He didn't even have to say anything! If only he'd smile, heck, even if it was just to cry, she'd take it only so they could reforge the connection they once had all those years ago.

Heck, she'd even take a glance in her direction at this point.

"You know, Lisanna would be honoured at the amount of time and effort you've put into keeping your promise to her." There it was! A response! His shoulders stiffened and his knuckles whitened as he held the mug in his hand with an iron-right grip.

"She w-wouldn't be mad at you for moving on, for letting her go and coming back to your family." Even as she said the words they felt like ash in her mouth. Let her go? How could she say such a thing if she couldn't do it? She was such a useless hypocrite.

Maybe she was just being selfish? Maybe she wanted desperately for Natsu to come back to them, to her. Maybe she just wanted a shoulder to cry on ever since Elfman refused to so much as shed a tear ever since that night.

"It's okay to let go," she urged again, but yelped in fright when, almost quicker than her experienced eyes could track, he stood and threw his mug towards her where it careened through the air and barely missed her before crashing into a section of the liqueur shelf behind her. At that distance there's no way Natsu could have missed had he really wanted to hit her, but the furious expression he was now directing at her that spoke of more than just anger was probably worse than any face-full of mug could ever be. Frustration, loathing, anger and even hate? These weren't emotions that belonged on Natsu Dragneel's face.

As the liqueur shelf crashed and shattered behind her, sending tens of thousands of jewels worth of alcohol to the floor with it, Mirajane decided that she would take Natsu ignoring her in a heartbeat if it meant she never had such a malevolent stare settled on her again. Not by someone she still considered precious, despite his best efforts to cut all ties to his past.

A tense silence filled the Guild Hall at his outburst, and everyone watched as Natsu breathed in and out heavily as he glared daggers at the lovely bar-maiden.

Before anyone could comment or reprimand him, his body was engulfed in flames and he rocketed through the ceiling, opening up a massive hole in the roof as he exploded through the support beams, and flew far away from Fairy Tail.

The silence hung heavily in the air as everyone turned their gazes to the shocked Mirajane whose hand covered her mouth and her eyes were wide with terror. When the bar-maid noticed she was the focus of the entire guild it all came rushing back to her.

With a choked sob, she covered her eyes with her forearm and ran out of the guild through the back, a startled Elfman quick to follow and lend support if need be.

"That damned Natsu," Erza muttered under her breath as her body shook and fists clenched in fury. She may as well have shouted it for all the good it did now that the guild was still in total, shocked silence.

Erza abruptly turned on her heel and made to chase after the furious fire-mage for making Mira cry and destroying a healthy portion of the guild but stopped at her master's command.

"Erza!" Makarov shouted before she could storm out of the guild. "Leave it!"

"But master -!," she made to protest but was immediately shot down by the stone-faced master of Fairy Tail.

"I said leave it!"

Her face contorting in rage, it took several moments for Erza to reign in her emotions. When she'd calmed down enough so that the urge to chase Natsu down and beat him into next week abated, she nodded and stalked out of the guild.

On her way out, she bumped shoulders with a swaggering Cana Alberona who swivelled to yell at Erza but shrugged it off when she noticed the red –head was already long gone. Had she looked up she would have seen a magnificent figure clad in gunmetal grey armour awkwardly flying away with the assistance of four pairs of ethereal angelic wings.

"What's _her_ prob…lem?" Cana asked the silent guild in a joking tone that quickly turned into shock at the disarray the hall seemed to be in.

"Okay, what the hell did I miss?"

**A/N: Again, UNBETA'd. As you can see, I did a little change to Lucy's Spirits, and I will be doing so with the others as well, making them a heck of a lot more formidable. They will still be the Zodiacs, but they will be more beastly and intimidating. Not some bishounen in a suit wearing rings, for example...**

**Nikora will be Lucy's very own Kakashi-esque nin-dog!**

**A bit of background on what Natsu's been doing for the past couple of years. Makarov finds a lead, Natsu chases it down like a bloodhound, he is disappointed.**

**If only he had a Wizard of Harry's calibur in his corner... wait...**

**Darvoul: something I pulled out of my ass. I may use them later, I may not. I modelled the idea of them off of Darkspawn but the Archdemon replaced by a C'Thun all powerful god thing like in WoW. It obviously isn't as powerful without an army backing it and to manipulate, however.**

**Also, as a warning, Cana and Lucy are going to be little slappers in this story, which means there will probably be lemons. They will he living together soon too, so Cana can get her freak on without worrying about getting a room (sexing ain't allowed in Fairy Hills).**

**The key Natsu gave Makarov will be Virgo, as I'm cutting out the Duke Everlue mission. I'll be cutting out Galuna Island too, so I'll figure something out for Sagittarius as well.**

**Finally, Happy and Natsu are still very much on good terms, but there's no way Natsu or Makarov would allow Happy to go on the ten-year jobs Natsu has been going on lately. That's why Natsu trains him to become more powerful. Exceed magic will NOT be limited to flying mascots in this story. Natsu is teaching him and treating him like any other student and teaching Happy magic.**


End file.
